Meet "Elizabeth"...

Well, I finished her in time for the show yesterday!  There are (as always) lots of things I could improve, but I'm going to save those for my next paintings, and call this one finished!

Liora named her Elizabeth...

"Arachnélégance"...

Here's what I am calling the "first finish" of Arachnélégance. At this point, it could be considered "finished" (it is on display at the MRP Gallery thru the First Friday in May, after all).

But (you knew there would be a "but", didn't you?!) I might put one more layer of transparent oils over the spider (to make it a bit more green-brown, and--hopefully--help it stand out even more from the background) after I remove it from the gallery next month.

I'll keep everyone posted, here...

More "Mische" Technique...

With the second oil paint layer (yellow this time) dry, I began work on the repainting of the "Thin-faced Man" night before last, and continued working on it last night. One of the articles I read about this technique emphasized that its best not simply to "re-paint" the image each time with egg-tempera, but to refine the image each time; to "perfect" it (to use a word-concept that is rather out of favour, especially in artistic/aesthetics circles, these days.)

I'm almost finished with this egg-tempera layer, the second--and looking forward to applying the final transparent oil paint layer, which will be blue (either Indianthrene, or Ultramarine--although I have some Daniel Smith Genuine Lapis-Lazuli...hmmm, now there's a thought!)

I'm going to make good use of having all three days off this Memorial Day weekend. I have five of these "Invented Faces" completely finished (well, except for applying a final varnish). The "Thin-faced Man" makes six. And, I have two more very nearly done--and I'm hoping to finish both of them this weekend. That would give me a total of eight, meaning five more to go.

I've started three more of the faces (I posted one of them with the entry for 10 May) but I'm not terribly pleased with any of them. I am considering drawing five new faces, and see if I like them better than the three that are barely started.

(I'll post those drawings when I have them, and post their progress as I work on them, as well...)

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend!

"Mische Technique" update...

I've been working on another painting over the weekend, while the layer of Rembrandt Permanent Madder Deep, applied over the grasaille of the "Thin Faced Man", dries.

I painted the first egg tempera layer last night, which will be overpainted with a layer of transparent yellow tonight, followed by another re-painting in egg tempera, then--

--well, I explained the process in a previous entry.

I made some slight changes (refinements, actually) to the image as I re-painted it with egg tempera, and I'm sure that this refinement will continue; I have two more layers of egg tempera to do, before the painting is "finished" with transparent oil paints.

This is the way it looked last night, when the first egg tempera layer was almost done...

More new stuff...

Here are a couple more of the "Invented Face" paintings. The 'thin man' face is currently a grisaille--an underpainting--that I'm going to paint using the "Mische" technique, in which the entire painting is painted using successive layers of transparent red, yellow, and blue oil paint. After each oil layer is painted, white egg tempera is used to refine the image, redefining the highlights, to further "model" the forms. After the third (blue) layer has been painted, and the image is again (for the third time!) repainted, redefined, and refined using white tempera, the painting is finished using "regular" transparent oils.

The other face will also have some additional layers added, using both opaque and transparent colours, again paying careful attention to the modelling of form.

(I need to count how many of the Faces I have started so far. I'm sure that four of them are completely done, at least three more are nearly finished, and--including these two--the number is either ten or eleven.)

These are both 12x16, oils on canvas.