Stuff, painting

[Flake]

Well, I did have a book here before but between Imageshack breaking links and Photobucket deleting anything with boobs, it became a graveyard of busted links rather quickly.
Seeing as the attachment manager appears to work fine now, I think it's time for another one.

My scanner is working again and the idea of starting on April Fools day appeals to me.

First post to establish thumbnail, more to follow.

[Flake]

Here's some of the more finished survivors from the old thread


Anatomy studies. Right now you could drive a bus through the gaps in my anatomy knowledge so there are going to be a lot of these..





My half assed effort for LMS. It's not great but it taught me a lot about digital and time managment so, yay.


Now that the weather isn't quite so horrible and I can open windows without either
-freezing my butt off or
-being stung by the wasps that decided to live outside my window
I'll be getting back into painting. Here's an older one I did for Self Portrait Day back in November. Sorry about glare, paint was still wet at the time.


And here's a very bad photo of a very early wip, really must dig out the tripod and take better pics once it's further along.

Edit: hooray, it works..

Comments, suggestion, paintovers, crits, questions very welcome and I'll reply when I have something new to post.

[Lake]

coooool stuff. you're well on your way. I'd have to say that you're squishing your anatomy in some of these images; the top of the head in the third portrait is off to the right, eg. Don't forget to step back from your drawing/painting every so often so you can analyze potential mistakes.

[ShaunLey]

nice studies they help in the long run. are you using oils or acryilics?

[kelly x]

I really like your self portrait and the painting studies are coming along -- keep up the good work.

[Lee W]

didn't know you started a new thread hope you keep this one going.

[Flake]

Lake Thanks, and yeah you're right about the anatomy, it's not helped by my lack of photography skills either.
That portrait you pointed out is indeed especially wonky, annoyingly I know I could fix it with a couple of swipes of a brush but I've lost that painting somewhere..

ShaunLeyThanks, in the first post the still life and wonky head self portrait are acrylic, bottom row are oil, everything else is chalk or pastel.
November portrait is oil.
Good point though, I'll label them as I go from now on.

kelly x Thank you, I will definitely be keeping the painting going. I enjoy digital but I think I'll always be happier smearing coloured mud around with a stick.

Lee W Yeah, I found with the old one I was spending more time editing broken links than posting in it so I thought a shiny new CA based thread might be a better idea.

btw sorry I took so long to reply to you lovely people, I forgot to subscribe to my own thread..

Anyway, micro update

Oil study from an old photo I took, 7" highish

Things I learned from this
-I do not have anywhere near the level of brush control to work this small, I think I'll try it again at maybe double or triple scale. It's odd because my pencil work tends to be tiny..


More anatomy studies.



Painting from previous post dried enough for me to finish it, well I'm calling it done, think I learned all I could from it. Oil, A3 ish. Wet paint, hence glare..

Things I learned from this
-Zinc white, Cad red and Lamp black take a long time to try if you've been heavy handed with the linseed oil..


Anyway, Tune in next week for more generic anatomy studies and mudslinging

[Lee W]

nice studies hmmm .. reminds me, I need to revisit the anatomy basics ..

[Flake]

Pencil / PS quicky


Oil still life, very much wip


Artrage quicky


Pencil and PS toon fluff










Edit: forgot the other oil wip

[chuck18mp]

pretty good stuff!
Thanks 4 sharing

[Flake]

Lazarus, come forth!

Haven't been in here for ages so time for a micro update..

Self portrait day. I used oil last year so I thought I'd try digital this time. Possibly not a good plan. Oh well, I need the practice.


Speaking of digital practice, another couple of speedy sketches. Warm ups for a series of Epic Sci Fi cheese I have in mind.



More painting.

Finished that other wip, oil.

I finally have a dedicated murky little corner of the flat to smear paint around in so expect more traditional from now on.

Anyway, cheerio for now.

[mike butkus]

I love the vampires !!

[maldrin]

Flake - looking forward to more oils - that last one especially is really lovely!

d

P.S. You're right about World War Z - he's thought about that stuff way too much, but boy is it entertaining!

[SMILEFACE]

hey thanks Flake for the comments in the art disscusion thread beautiful work in your SB

[4ntimatter]

Great painting Flake. And love the style.

[Flake]

Micro update since I haven't posted here for ages.

Yeah, it's more anatomy studies..


A quick Loomis copy and a cautionary tale. I let this dry for two months before varnishing and the retouch still took some of the top layer of paint off. Lamp black is an evil pigment that doesn't like to dry..

Another one, A4-ish. Used Ivory black after the mishap with the previous effort. Live and learn eh.

Oil on canvas 12x16 Still a bit wet, hence glare.

[Flake]

So I smeared more coloured mud and vegetable oil around, here is what happened..
I just swapped out the graphics card on this PC so the colours may be a tad wonky, not convinced I have it all calibrated yet but it's close enough on this monitor.
Oil on board 12x16

Oil on board 6x8

Oil on canvas 10x12

[dcorc]

Just popping in to cheer you on - and to offer a little advice on blacks in oil-paint - add a bit of umber into your lamp black or ivory black - it will make a significant difference to drying times.


Dave

[Flake]

Dave , thanks.
Adding Burnt Umber to my palette is exactly what I did after the Loomis mishap.
I'd always used it for washy underpaintings but now it stays on the palette throughout.

This leaves me with a small, cheap but quite versatile palette of

-Zinc White
-Ivory Black
-Yellow Ochre
-Transparent Red Ochre
-Burnt Umber

Seems to be working quite well so far, obviously it'll have to change if I start to paint parrots on a flowery background but for now I'm just trying to understand how a smallish number of pigments behave and mix with each other.

Cheers for the advice though, I'm making this up as I go and it's always good to hear that I made a sound decision on anything..

[Flake]

Speaking of paint, here's some recent ones.
Oil on canvas, 8x10

Oil on board 12x10?

Oil on canvas 10x10, cropped a tiny bit to fit in the scanner

[Flake]

Long time no update, but I've been busy cramming everything I own into cardboard boxes, moving house is..not great fun.

Anyway, I found the box with the paint and the one with the coffee machine so back to work..
Oil on canvas 10x10

Oil on Bristol 16x20 ish

[Flake]

Tiny update, been slinging paint around again
6x10

8x12

8x12

[mrhugecojones]

Hey, I totally love your work and I have a tip for you about varnishing ur paintings. even if the paint feels dry to the touch, it is a bad idea to varnish before at least 6 months for lite color aplications, and up to 2 years time for heavy stuff like impastos. So even if you switch to Ivory black (Which is my favorite) it is still a bad idea to varnish so soon.

You don't worry about varnish unless you are keeping the painting, varnish is something your clients should do quite a long time after they bought your paintings.

Hope that helped!

Cheers.

[Flake]

MrHugeCojones, Thanks, While I agree you should wait a good while before applying a final varnish, I only use retouch. It brings the sunken in darks back out and the paint can still dry properly.
Thinking about it, I don't remember the last time I actually applied a proper full on varnish to anything..

Latest batch. I'm not 100% sure but I think this is my first ever landscape..oil on canvas 8x10

Same palette as before, it was really tempting to reach for those cadmiums though.
I might try the same scene with a full palette, see how it turns out, possibly a rainbow vomit mess..
Planning to paint more of these, might as well since theres a lot of green about here.
Anyway, we now return you to your usual programming of smeary oil paintings of ladies.
Oil on canvas 10x10

Oil on board 12x16

See you next week or whenever I finish more work..

[Flake]

Tiny update, oil paint stubbornly refuses to dry in cold damp weather hence wet paint, glare etc.

Anyway, landscape #2, oil on canvas 8x10

Trying to paint a mostly green scene without actually using green seemed to be dangerously close to masochism so I swapped the ivory black out for phthalo green this time. Now that Winter has descended I doubt I'll need that green for about 4 months..

Meanwhile, back in more familiar territories, 10x12.

Last one for now, 8x12


Anyway, cheerio for now.

[Flake]

So, long time no update.

I tried to post a few snaps of the current painting a while back, however on connecting camera to the pc this is what came out..

No, that's not an exciting new style for me, that's a dead camera sensor.

Anyway, while camera was sent off to camera hospital I amused myself with pencil based doodlings.



Shortly afterward dead camera rose from the grave and I was able to photograph some more painting. wip.

Here's what that first one was supposed to look like..wip btw this needs way more everything.

And here's a painting of a stuffed snowman, just because.
Cheerio for now.

[Flake]

Micro update time..
More progress on this one.

Another small one..

And another..

And yet another

New one..

Bigger one based on tiny study in post #20.


Cheerio for now.

[Flake]

This weeks mini update. More slinging of paint.
10x10

16x20

11x9ish?

Anyway, all for now, cheerio.

[MatthewHD]

The more I look at paintings the more I want to try it out.

Good stuff, I like the scenic studies with the benches.

[purplegoat]

Your backgrounds in the paintings are lively and at the same time add to the subject. Cool brushwork there. Are your figures from life or photo ref? Just curious.