Still developing website · 1526 days ago
… should be up in a few hours. Very exciting! In the meantime here is a photo of the still-life using a flash. This removes the shadows and reveals the drawing. The lens bent the ellipses and I am redrawing them with white chalk pencil. Calcium carbonate is soluble in oil and dissappears in to the wet paint. For some reason the chalk isn’t laying down well.
— Robert Lovely
Starting a new painting. · 1526 days ago
First attempts at using a photo instead of drawing. Used an old white washed medium-weave canvas. Figured it was my last chance to dig out any old crap. Should have sanded before the whitewash. Spent maybe an hour picking out all the specks and lumps.
Mounted canvas right next to still-life without using a easel. It’s as close to sight-size as possible. Sitting on floating stool so I marked center of pillar. Then set up camera exactly where the center of my eyes would be. FLASH OFF! That way I get the exact shadow shapes. Takes hours in Photoshop to get the perspective right. Had to measure a good-sized vertical (the green thing) to get the print size right.. Must remember to put a registration mark where the two print-outs must be spliced together. (the painting is 15 × 11). Put burnt umber on the whole back of print- dabbed on with big, round, dry white bristle brush- and let dry maybe two hours.
Set canvas up again, right next to still life. Used screws and clamps to make the canvas TOTALLY immoveable. Matched it to the target mark I set up on the back wall of the box… I’d made the mark with pencil. Lined up the print-out exactly in the same place as the horizontal hit the objects. Taped on. Used a red rollerball. Took probably 2 hours on transfer, taking frequent breaks.
Couldn’t finish it before bed… but first thing in the morning the burnt umber still transferred beautifully… maybe better! I kept tightening the drawing by looking from life. Then inked the whole thing with a brush and black India ink.
Since it was a rough-ish canvas I used a big house-painting brush to wash-in the burnt umber (maybe half w/ turpentine.. to a melted butter consistency). Then pulled out the light-ish areas with a dry rag. There are no bright whites so I didn’t use any turp on the rag… didn’t want to break the paint layer.
Got a heater on it to dry it some more. I’ll put more work in on it this afternoon.
It’s turning out that working from a photograph is taking longer than it would take me to simply draw the thing!— Robert Lovely
Backgrounds · 1527 days ago
Remembering how important it is to paint each background color not as it WILL BE, but with the color of the wash out. I’m just getting the edge wet so the object will blend into the background. The actual colors will be painted last. Also it will be lighter than I think right now.
— Robert Lovely
Still building website; writing holiday cards · 1527 days ago
Still building website; writing holiday cards. I’ll still be titling this section “Still-life with unknown objects” because that is the painting I’m currently working on. I’ve done more work but haven’t remembered anything I felt I needed to remembered. Most of this stuff is things past teachers said but I had forgotten.
Website will launch in 2-3 hours. Still sending out holidays cards and it seems like it’s a good idea finding a different way to say “BestwishesforyouandyourfamilyandjoyinthisholidayseasonmuchsuccessintheNewYear” on each card. Takes forever.
— Robert Lovely
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