I don’t have a title for this one yet. I have been working on it for many months…it’s an original work in oil on a 16×20 canvas. I have a lot of stuff I need to fix or add to, including details on most of it, but here’s what I have so far:

Graveyard work in prog 07-19-2010

The sky is pretty much the only thing that is complete at this point but the overall idea of the painting is going to stay the same, I just need to finish up a lot of stuff and make some stuff darker, etc etc.

Categories: lovecraft, oil painting, work-in-progress by Airn
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It’s been a few painting sessions since my last post on this…since then I have started glazing transparent color over the “dead layer” underpainting of the faces and done more work on the hair:

Duplicitous work in progress (detail)

No part of this is quite finished yet, but the hair ringlets and faces probably only need another session or two. I might add ribbons to the hair and dress and am debating what else to do on the dress, I don’t like the way it looks right now. I’m also going to put something in the background; I will probably paint a traditional-looking wallpaper pattern.

I’m happy about the glazing, it works very well over the dead layer and is surprisingly quick to do, like an hour or less was spent on each face adding color. In the same and subsequent sessions I also add opaque highlights, clean up lines, darken shadows, slightly alter features and fix any issues I notice, etc.

Categories: dead layer, oil painting, portrait, work-in-progress by Airn
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Did a lot of research and planning for the clothing on this one, this is after the second session on the dress:

Duplicitous - work in prog 2

I’ve found it really difficult to get hi-res photos of the kind of dress I want, to help me figure out how to paint it…I went to a local costume store and they wouldn’t let me take a couple pix so I kept scouring the internet. I collected about 30 photos of dresses and thought I would try to use ideas from a few for my painting. I picked a couple main ones I thought I could learn from and drew them, trying to figure stuff out and build my “drapery vocabulary”. After I felt a little more comfortable with the way the fabric might fold and bunch up and how the light should look on it, I tried a full-size study that I would use later with my painting…I just used a 4B pencil. The best ref I had was at an angle so I imagined what it might look like from the front, etc. I had some scraps of fabric I bought but I didn’t find them too useful for this. After doing a lot of this I felt a bit of an epiphany this morning and really felt like I was “getting it”, quite a nice feeling after a lot of minor frustration.

Probably will put a big ribbon on the dress and maybe some lace…then I need to glaze color over the faces and finish the hair, maybe change the blue background, etc…still have a while on this one. And I thought it would be a quick project, ha!

Some of the studies I did

While workin'

Categories: drawings, oil painting, portrait, surreal, work-in-progress by Airn
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Besides the oil paintings I have in progress and lotsa sketching and learning to draw stuffs, especially figures, I’m working on a couple little watercolor and ink things…here is one of them

Witchy Scone Scone

Categories: drawings, lovecraft, work-in-progress by Airn
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One of the paintings I am currently working on is below…it’s tentatively called “Duplicitous Diandra and Devious Deirdre”. I’m working with oil on panel and doing a dead layer underpainting for this. I’m definitely having some flashbacks to my Petrus Christus master study and have also been trying to channel some Hans Holbein the Younger as well

Here’s what I have so far (detail):

"Duplicitous" work in prog April 11 2010

This is the drawing I did for this, which I transferred onto the panel:

"Duplicitous" sketch

Categories: dead layer, drawings, oil painting, portrait, work-in-progress by Airn
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I’ve been drawing a lot over the past few months, but although I upload a lot of it to Facebook I haven’t put much on here. Here’s a couple things I think are cool-looking.

I did a lot of studies of hair ringlets, mostly for a new painting I am working on but also ’cause they are cool and interesting to draw:

Studies of hair ringlets

I recently bought some books on figure drawing and anatomy for artists and have been working on learning some stuff…these are based on drawings by Joseph Sheppard in his book “Anatomy: A Complete Guide for Artists”:

Anatomy drawings, after Joseph Sheppard

I’ve been experimenting with drawing on toned paper (mostly blue) and using normal HB graphite pencils plus white colored pencils…pretty fun and I like the way it looks especially with the white on the blue. Hard to take photos of though.

Here is something I did based on a painting by Jan van Eyck, again using the blue and white technique:

Van Eyck drapery

Categories: drawings, portrait, work-in-progress by Airn
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I think this is almost done, but I’m not sure. I might decide to make some fairly major changes, I am still debating.

Greuze White Hat study work in progress

*Update 02-14-10: I did decide to make some big changes, and altered the nose, mouth, and other stuff. Here’s the current stage of the painting, maybe it’s really almost done this time:

White Hat study - work in progress 02-13-10

Categories: master study, oil painting, portrait, work-in-progress by Airn
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Still working on my Greuze study, The White Hat. Here’s where I am after tonight’s session:

White Hat WIP 12-29-09

This is the biggest painting I have done so far, but it’s still only 16×20 inches. Maybe I am fairly close to wrapping this one up? This has progressed pretty speedily…I think I have spent about 12 hours on this, not counting the drawing part.

Categories: master study, oil painting, portrait, work-in-progress by Airn
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Here’s the most recent version of my Lila Lee painting:

Lila Lee WIP 12-13-09

By the way, if you notice a similarity between this and my new version of Alice’s Picnic in Wonderland, that’s ’cause I used the same person (Cheryl ‘Rainbeaux’ Smith) as inspiration for my Alice redo…I thought she totally fit the bill of Alice

Categories: Alice in Wonderland, oil painting, portrait, work-in-progress by Airn
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I’m changing my Alice in Wonderland painting. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

Alice in Wonderland redo - work in progress 12-13-09

I’m also going back and changing some other stuff, like my Bouguereau piece.

*Update 12-13-09:  I updated the photo in this post with the most recent version.

Categories: Alice in Wonderland, oil painting, surreal, work-in-progress by Airn
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