I just finished this painting, which I started in late November 2008. It’s called Graveyard Girl from the Dream City and is 11×14 inches, oil on panel. It’s a kind of surreal portrait of an imaginary girl in ornate finery standing in front of a tombstone-strewn night landscape with a dream city background.

For all posts about this painting, see the dream city category. I have a lot more info about this project in the earlier posts.

Graveyard Girl from the Dream City by Airn LeBus. Oil on panel, 11x14 inches, 2009.

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, it has a kind of shining dark clarity which I think is unique. Painting on panel and leaving a lot of hard edges yielded a crispness which contrasts with the surreal nature of the painting. It took “too long”, but I learned a lot. A lot of time was spent on the face fixing some issues, and a lot on the clothing which I had not planned out properly and which I changed halfway through. So like many of my paintings, much time was spent re-doing stuff or experimenting / figuring things out. I think painting on panel is more difficult for me than canvas, but I can’t glaze in the same way on canvas so I have been using panel when I am going for harder edges and lots of glazing.

Total time spent on this: about 40 hours painting and 14 hours drawing and planning.

Graveyard Girl from the Dream City (detail)

On the clothing, I suffered from lack of reference material and the small size of the details. I wanted to do some gold embroidery like in the Ghent Altarpiece but after trying it for a few hours / sessions, I ended up painting over it and adopting a simpler approach. The gems in the middle ended up looking cool but part of the effect was accidental — I wiped off some paint and removed some lower layers by mistake. It made a kind of glow-effect that I kept and built on.

I like the final glazed-over face, even though I initially painted a dead layer that was too dark and it took me many careful sessions to lighten it. I left some parts “too dark” since she looks kind of corpse-like and it fits with the graveyard scene. I’m not quite sure if she is undead, or a ghost, or what. Her eyes follow you around the room though, so that must mean she is still alive

I glazed vermillion (hue) and yellow ochre over the raw umber dead layer underpainting to get the flesh tone. I also put more opaque white/yellow/vermillion for highlights and to lighten up the underpainting.

Graveyard Girl from the Dream City (background detail)

Once I finished this, I didn’t using retouching varnish. Varnish in general can really unify and deepen a painting and just overall make it look way better, but you can’t use a final varnish on an oil painting until it is truly dry; a general rule of thumb seems to be a year. You can put retouching varnish on when it is only touch-dry though, like maybe a week or two after your painting is done. I used to do that with all my paintings but a few of them are still sticky months later so I am going to stop using it. This one would be at major risk for the same thing, since many parts are thick with many fairly oily layers so I am already concerned about drying times.

Switching to mars black has helped, since it dries much faster than ivory black which I was using before. I also started ‘oiling out’ much more lightly after parts were sticky for many days due to too much oil in the oiling out and glazing process. Dust is also a major concern when the painting is sticky like that. Now I very lightly apply oil with my fingers and wipe as much off as possible, again with fingers or very gently putting a paper towel against the painting and running a finger over it to get the excess oil up. Even after a week of drying, rubbing a paper towel over the oiled-out painting seems to remove paint. I usually try to paint very thinly so depending on the color used and oil amount, a week is usually enough time for me to oil out and do another session. I use bleached linseed oil which I understand dries faster than normal linseed and also yellows less.

Who knows about all this stuff though, because scouring the web or books gives conflicting info, and there are so many different combinations of technique and materials which can yield different results. I just read books and search on the web, take everything I read with a grain of salt, and try stuff and if it seems to work I keep doing it.

Categories: completed, dead layer, dream city, oil painting, painting tips, portrait, surreal by Airn
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Here’s where I’m at on my Alice in Wonderland painting. I am happy with how it’s turning out…it’s going quickly too, which is refreshing. Every painting session so far has been really enjoyable and “productive”, without a lot of repainting stuff and frustration like many of my other paintings

Alice in Wonderland painting work in progress.

Since I have a deadline on this one I am making sure to paint every couple of days, I’ll be done with it in a couple weeks max.

Update:  this painting is done. To see the finished one and other Alice stuff, look at the Alice in Wonderland category.

Categories: Alice in Wonderland, art shows, oil painting, surreal, work-in-progress by Airn
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Here’s the progress I have made so far on my Alice painting…this is after 2 painting sessions.

Alice painting work in progress session 2

Working on canvas is refreshing…the 3 other paintings I am working on are all on panel, and although I enjoy some aspects of it, canvas is so much easier to blend on and such. The amount of progress I have made so far would not have been possible for me on panel. I’m also loving using yellow+black for the greens, it makes it really easy to match the shade if needed and to do shadows and highlights (just add more black/yellow). I also have a few different earth tones mixed in there too though to add variety.

Update:  this painting is done. To see the finished one and other Alice stuff, look at the Alice in Wonderland category.

Categories: Alice in Wonderland, oil painting, surreal, work-in-progress by Airn
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I’m in the early stages of a new Alice in Wonderland project. It’s for a group show at the Muddy Waters cafe in Santa Barbara. The show is called Alice in Wonkaland…entries can be either related to Alice in Wonderland or Willie Wonka, or both! If you want more details on the show or if you’d like to submit something, please contact Traci Lane at this page on Myspace.

My own painting is going to be 11×14 inches, oil on canvas. I am going to paint direct this time, no monochromatic underpainting on this one.

Here’s a detail of the preliminary sketch:

Alice in Wonderland sketch - preliminary drawing for oil painting

I changed the drawing a little since that photo…thankfully I checked it in an 11×14 frame before transferring it to the canvas — I was not happy with the cropping and would have been very bummed later! I’ll post more photos once I get some paint down.

Update:  this painting is done. To see the finished one and other Alice stuff, look at the Alice in Wonderland category.

Oh, I think I am also going to submit a miniature oil painting portrait of Alice Pleasance Liddell, I’ll post a pic of that later…it looks too crummy right now to post

Categories: Alice in Wonderland, art shows, drawings, oil painting, surreal, work-in-progress by Airn
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I’ve been working on this painting since late November 2008, this is tentatively called Graveyard Girl From The Dream City and is oil on 11×14 inch panel.

For all posts about this painting, see the dream city category.

You can also jump to just the finished version here: graveyard-girl-from-the-dream-city-completed

Graveyard Girl from the Dream City (work in progress)

Detail view:

Graveyard Girl from the Dream City (detail) - work in progress

Planning, transferring the drawing, imprimatura

I initially wanted to paint something like a combination of my old painting Pigtail Gurl and Dream City in a larger format and with the idea that I can do a better job now that I have more experience. I wanted to experiment more with the “dead layer” technique too, especially after trying it with my Christmas Angel painting and having some success with it there. As I was planning it out the drawing got more complicated and the buildings and such ending up being a bit less weird than the Dream City, although I will still use a similar palette and the skyline and sky will be similar.

I used Poser software to create a model of the girl that I lit and posed as I had envisioned and then used that as I would a normal photo reference. I did the line drawing all in Photoshop, and then printed it out at Kinko’s. I also did some color study stuff in Photoshop. I used graphite transfer paper to get it on the panel (tracing over my printed-out drawing). This is the first time I’ve tried this technique and it worked well, but I dislike the overall process and aesthetic of digital art so on projects I have been going back to traditional media (pencil/paper/etc) for everything, including the planning and initial drawing. After recently looking at some Albrecht Dürer stuff I’m even more inspired to get better at drawing and to generally eschew digital techniques. I ended up changing the drawing considerably later, I will post that later as a comparison to the final painting.

I went over the drawing on the panel in sepia ink (ultra fine Sharpie) and put a thin wash of olive greenish color over everything (imprimatura) using Turpenoid, a little Galkyd Light, tiny bit of red ochre, yellow ochre light, and ivory black. It really didn’t need to be that complex…a couple times recently I have used a few transparent coats of acrylic, very thin to keep it smooth, just black and yellow, for an olive green color. The imprimatura is partly to wash away the graphite and seal the pen, and partly as a ground for the next layer since the panel I was using was too smooth and shiny. You can also let the brush strokes show through to add variety and texture, although in this one I didn’t do that. I made sure not to use too much turps as it will cause the paint to lose cohesion, that happened to me on my Two Mushrooms painting. Using Turpenoid in the paint is not my favorite thing, that’s another reason for me to use acrylic for the imprimatura.

Dead layer underpainting

With the girl’s face, I am again glazing over a raw umber dead layer underpainting. It is very nice to just focus on the tonal values and such without worrying about color initially.

My first session of underpainting for the face ended up being way too dark, partly cause I had a rather bright light on my easel and it was too close to the painting, duh. I’m getting better about physically stepping back from the painting a lot, moving the light around and viewing under other lights, looking at the painting in a mirror, upside down, etc. I also know from reading and my experience with “failed” glazing attempts that the underpainting should be rather lighter that desired for the final result, since I will be glazing onto the shadows as well as the lighter areas later, darkening most of it except the highlights.

Here’s a photo close to the end of the dead layer stage (although this was too dark!) and then a pic of the work-in-progress after I had glazed on some color:

Dead layer version of Graveyard Girl from the Dream City

In the first dead layer underpainting session I spent about 3 hours mostly on the face. I used raw umber and titanium white with no turpentine, oil, or other medium. I mixed up 4 shades on my palette and was happy at first to have a fairly nice reference (for a change) from my Poser rendering. Later I bemoaned the poser reference for the lack of realistic details, a real photo would have been superior.

I used several of the same-sized flat and filbert / tapered brushes so that I could use one for each value of umber…I painted all the darkest areas, then moved up in lightness and painted a bit wet-into-wet, doing a little blending afterward with clean dry brushes.

After that I spent several more sessions working on the face, lightening further and defining features, etc. It seems generally better to err on the side of it being too light rather than too dark…as long as you don’t lose the drawing and definition between elements, it’s easier to go back and darken shadows than to lighten everything up. It can take several sessions to cover up a dark area with light since I paint thinly, and it can look funky and chalky putting white over a darker color when the dark shows through.

Palette and glazing over the dead layer

I used cadmium yellow light (hue) + mars black for the greens so far, and have been using fairly fine bristle brushes a lot lately. Pthalho blue for water and sky, french ultramarine in the sky too. Clothing is prussian blue. For black I use mars and white is titanium.

The flesh tone glazing has been vermillion and yellow ochre with bleached linseed oil. Before I glaze I “oil out” the skin area by rubbing on the oil with my finger, letting it sit briefly and rubbing off the excess with a finger or very carefully with a paper towel. Dust has been a major issue with glazing, I constantly need to check for and remove dust from the painting as I am working on it. Storing the painting in between sessions face down carefully leaning against a wall helps. Dust on big brushes is probably the biggest culprit.

So far I have spent about 24 hours total painting this with another 10 or so drawing and planning.

The next post on this will probably be in a few weeks and will be the completed painting.

I am going to do a separate post later about what I have learned so far about glazing and using a dead layer.

Categories: dead layer, dream city, oil painting, painting tips, portrait, surreal, work-in-progress by Airn
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Multiform clouds of mist obscure unearthly blue pools and strange lichened structures loom over crumbling tombstones. Anubis watches over an arcane garden with its odd flora and steaming central pool…eroded, swampy cemeteries adjoin surreal towers. A silently staring eye peers down upon the city…a floating aqueduct hovers above a Scarab-shaped building and the glowing water tumbles down through another peculiar edifice.

I finished my Dream City #1 painting after many months and a plethora of major revisions…paint over a building here, add a channel of glowing water there, slap in an Eye of Horus here, a tombstone there…

Dream City 1 by Airn LeBus, oil on canvas board, 14x18 inches, 2008

(I updated the picture above on 03-18-09 to a more accurate one, especially color-wise, and without the frame)

Really happy with the frame I had made for this one. I got it at Craft Essentials in Goleta…the color and distressed texture look great with the painting and I think the gold design around the edge fits well with the Egyptian motif.

I compiled some of the various stages and revisions this went through…it looks so much different now than the initial sketch and early versions!

Early versions of Dream City #1

Later versions of Dream City #1

Definitely going to do another Dream City, next time I will plan it better and do it on smooth panel rather than canvas so I can do details better…it was rough to try smaller details with the heavy canvas texture. Much like the Cracky-Chan painting, I have been working on this so long I have become a better painter whilst working on different paintings in the interim, so when I came back to this one it was tempting to try to “fix” a ton of stuff that I think I could do “better” now. I generally resisted that urge, although I did modify some buildings and clouds/smoke/fog and water and such on my final night of painting this, 11/05/08. It always takes me at least a week to post a finished painting cause I let it dry a while then put retouching varnish before I take a picture.

Overall I am happy with the look and feeling of this painting; my three favorites I have done so far are this one, The Well III, and Jovial Jack O’ Lantern. The next painting I will start is related…another odd girl kinda like Pigtail Gurl but I want to include part of this cityscape behind her so that she is sitting for the portrait in the Dream City.

Categories: completed, dream city, oil painting, surreal by Airn
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I completed The Well III a week or so ago, after letting it dry enough I put a layer of retouching varnish on it and here ya go:

The Well III oil painting by Airn LeBus, oil on panel 9x9 inches, 2008

I think maybe this is the best painting I have done so far overall, and it was one of the fastest to complete! I didn’t have to make very many revisions even though it wasn’t planned out at all…although I sort of based this on other drawings I have done I didn’t sketch this out beforehand, just started painting and went with the flow. I am happy with this one and want to do more creepy landscape type scenes, I’m loving the creepy night scenes.

Categories: completed, lovecraft, oil painting, surreal by Airn
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Tentacles emerge from a subterranean well as sickly broiling vapors swirl around the misty oozing swamp. Luminous fungi cast an eerie radiance on crumbling stone as the slithering, ropy tentacles writhe in the moonlight.

Update 11-02-08: The Well III is done, go here to see the finished painting.

The Well III, oil on panel, 9x9 inches, work in progress 09-28-08

This painting is inspired partly by H.P. Lovecraft’s writings and his Cthulhu Mythos. It’s a kind of sequel to a couple watercolor illustrations I did and also a companion piece to my dark and creepy Lovecraftian song The Well.

I finished my Jovial Jack O’ Lantern painting directly before this and picked up some new techniques for painting grim grass, forbidding flora, slimy stone, and other such goodness. This is a rather small painting so I wasn’t able to cram in any tombstones or anything but I’m excited about the overall look and feel of the painting, there’s something super creepy and cool about steaming swamps and weird glowing mushrooms. I’m starting to figure out what I like painting the most: creepy night scenes with fog and smoke and lots of glowing stuff (like Dream City #1 and Jovial Jack O’ Lantern :B).

Categories: lovecraft, oil painting, surreal, work-in-progress by Airn
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Jovial Jack O’ Lantern is done. It was really tough to get a good picture of this one, the retouching varnish made it quite glossy and the sky kept looking too light in the photo which it is not. I messed with the levels and such to get it as close as possible, but still it’s really a bit darker if you see it in person…I wanted this to have that old dark oil painting feel and I’m happy with the result. I like the mixture of kinda weird and creepy tombs with eyes and stuff vs. the happy-lookin pumpkin

Jovial Jack O Lantern by Airn LeBus, oil on panel 11x14 inches, 2008

This is the fastest I have finished a painting, only a few weeks total (no idea how much actual time, maybe like 20 to 40 hours including the drawing and planning?), it was nice to have a deadline since it meant I couldn’t futz around too much when I should just say it’s done and had to plan it right and not paint over stuff completely…it’s INSANE as I look back at the Dream City #1 and Cracky Chan and other paintings, I have painted over them so many times! When those paintings are done I will post all the major versions just fer fun.

Categories: completed, halloween, jack-o-lantern, oil painting, surreal by Airn
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I’m excited about my Jovial Jack O’Lantern painting (work in progress):

Jovial Jack O Lantern work in progress 09-13-08

It’s cool too to know people will see it in real life…most of my stuff, for instance the Priestess of Dagon painting, looks a lot better in real life, even though I am not glazing or anything which creates light effects that are impossible to witness except in real life. That makes me happy…digital art can never reproduce the sort of feeling you get looking at something like a Rembrandt painting in real life. The first time I saw one of his paintings I totally connected with it in a way that left me astounded and literally feeling like there was a living person peering at me from within the frame. I’m rather far from that point but my stuff still looks better in real life than the crappy snapshot photos I’m posting on here

OK, anyway I like doing the embossed/engraved stuff with stone, I hadn’t tried it until now but I’m all into it. Doing the grass and stuff and the lichen and moss on the stone has also been a lot of fun! This painting has taught me a lot so far and I will use some of the knowledge on two other paintings I have in progress that have stone and outdoor night scenes. Hurray for creepy moonlit night scenes!

Categories: halloween, jack-o-lantern, oil painting, surreal, work-in-progress by Airn
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