MERRILY I PAINT A LONG!

Brandon and Kyra

So, does Brandon have red hair?  No way.  You'll get to see what's what soon.  I have a plan, like usual, and it takes a while to get things going.  This is just the underpainting.  When I layer the other colors on top I'll leave little peeks of this and that will unify this painting in a way that the casual observer wouldn't notice.  I like to be tricky, you see.

The biggest thing I like about this composition is the way your eye is centered on the most important part-the children's faces.  Neither one is the star because they both are.  My art teacher, Robert Rumel, told me years ago that showing a child's little hands adds so much to a painting.  There's something about them that is so special.  These are 2 little cousins that live on opposite ends of the country and it's rare for them to be together.  So this makes this closeness that they show even more tender.  

The background is going to come about soon and it's going to be very fun!

BRANDON AND KYRA: Okay, I redrew it again......now I'm really starting it

Brandon and Kyra

Well, I know I'm being ridiculously picky but I just didn't feel right about what I had done so far.  I knew I would always look at this painting and think that something just wasn't quite right.  Anyway, now that I've got my rough sketch done I'm starting to get the basics in.

I've planned something fun for this.  I want it to say 'zoo' when it's looked at because that's where they are.  Anyone that knows me knows that I love bright colors.  So this is going to have that but I think I'm going to do a little different style than I normally do.  It's going to be fun!

NEW PAINTING! BRANDON AND KYRA AT THE ZOO!

How could I resist this!  Such a gorgeous composition.  In fact I think it's about perfect.  A composition should guide the eye around the painting.   Starting at one point and coming full circle.  There are many ways to do this.  One is the actual position of the subject matter.  Other ways are with color and lighting.  The linear aspect of this painting is so fluid.  It's almost a heart shape the way they're sitting.  The arms and hands are perfectly placed as if I moved them into position but I didn't.  It's really going to be great with dramatic lighting.

The old artist me would have taken a picture and had it made into a slide.  Then projected it so I could trace the lines.  I know that sounds like cheating but it's really not.  It saves so much time and you end up redrawing the whole thing anyway.  But I just would rather sketch it on and hope for the best.  I did that once before with figures and I think it turned out well.  It may not look 100% like the person but it's a more painterly way of doing things. 

Another thing that makes this different is the fact that I've started with the brilliant underpainting.  That will definitely add dimension.  I'm kind of playing with the idea of making this more illustrative and not just realism but I don't know.  It's tempting to use the style that I like so well with my portraits.  This will be very fun. 

Now the background will have to be much more interesting than in the photo.  They're actually sitting in a little stroller at the zoo but it's bland.  I'm going to think of something much better but not sure what yet. 

Anyway.....I'm excited!

FINISHED! IT ALL CAME TOGETHER!

"First Snow-Big Cottonwood Canyon" Julie Jacobsen

You might not see much difference between this step and the final but it does have some subtle differences.  In order to keep pulling the eye back into the distance I had to dull some of the oranges on the right side of the road.  Bright colors come forward and duller ones recede.  That's due to the atmosphere-the air-that layers over things.  Da Vinci was a master at this.  If the rules aren't followed then you'll have a flat painting.  I even dulled the pine trees in the upper right corner so they would recede.  It's a little hard to tell from this but I even dulled the road the same way.  That helps to 'lay it down'.  Now you might think that it's not as perfect as a photograph.  But do you really want a photograph on the wall as a painting?  Paintings are interesting because they have that 'painterly' feel to them.  That's what makes it inviting. 

I think this is why paintings stand the test of time.  Otherwise when photography came out paintings would have been dropped.  Same comparison to electronic books and regular ones.  There's just something about the real deal.

I hope you agree and I might have taught you something about creating distance.  I'm sure I taught about this in a much earlier blog.  Anyway want to know more?  Let me know and I'll post some other great ideas that will help.

THE PROJECT CONTINUES......creating distance and movement

The latest step in the new painting

If you had seen yesterday's post you would see that in the step below I've started adding the pine trees and snow.  I also put in an underpainting of blue as a base for the foreground snow on the side of the road.  Notice the blues are different.  The one closest to the front is a brilliant blue and the one towards the back is cerulean blue.  The brighter color will bring this forward and the duller will push back.  A careful plan to lead the eye the right way when I put the snow on top of the blues.

I used a natural sponge to swoosh in the purple/brown on the hillside.  It's preparation for the bushes to go on top.

I've put another layer on top of the underpainting for the road.  The road is not really an exciting element but it will help to create distance and lead the eye back.  

Notice the mountain in the back recedes because I layered a veil on top of it.  This is just a semi opaque milky wash (with some other colors mixed in) to layer the atmospheric air on top-more creating distance.  I want to create movement as if one is traveling down the road-which we were-and the scene is flying by.

 It's been such a nice Sunday and now it's time for bed.  How wonderful it is to get painting again!

MY NEW PROJECT plus the usual fixes of other paintings

It's just time to begin a new painting.  I've been fooling around with the markers-just like I did with mosaics-but there comes a time when I realize that I'm neglecting my biggest talent and that is painting.

"Julie - Kauai 10th Anniversary"  Julie Jacobsen

But let me back up.  So for the last month I've been redoing some of my paintings.  I'm just one of those perfectionists and can't stop until I have things done satisfactory to myself.  So first I started out by repairing my mouth.  This is part of a set of 2 paintings that I did of my husband and I on our 10th wedding anniversary in Kauai.  We went for a hike on Makana Mountain-made famous in that it was superimposed out in the middle of the ocean to be the mysterious Bali Hai in the movie "South Pacific" .  I love that movie.  So when we started hiking the trail I had tears in my eyes.  We took pictures and years later I did these paintings.

"Chris - Kauai 10th Anniversary"  Julie Jacobsen

Then I had to fix a hand on another painting-which I'm not going to post because I don't like it that much-but I'm satisfied for it to go back on the shelf (see what a perfectionist I am!)

"Mackintosh Apples" Julie Jacobsen

In this painting I brightened the sky through the window in the upper right corner so it will say 'sky'.  I pushed back the yellow tile into the shadows more because the bright yellow was competing with the apples for attention.  I could still push them back into the shadows more but I think it dulls the painting.  This painting is only 5" x 7".  Very small and I'm not satisfied with the frame.  It's just a temporary one but I do like this painting.  It's very homey.

Now back to the original idea of what I'm starting.  There's nothing better to get me going than to have to do a wedding present for one of my nieces and nephews.  In this case it is for Ali.  Here are the first 2 steps:

Note:  I just finished a wonderful book called "Heaven is Here" by Stephanie Nielson.  She is the creator of nieniedialogues.com.  It is a wonderful true story about the plane crash she and her husband survived and their difficult recovery.  Reading about how she finally was able to get back to blogging I realized that I've neglected my blog.  She inspired me to be more consistent in posting.  I guess I just realized in the past that I could spend all my time blogging and not painting.  But I guess that's not really true because I waste time doing other things.  So I might as well start posting more.  I hope my readers will get something out of what I post.  Please let me know if you are interested in my postings as it really is fun for me to hear what you think.

ADVENTURES WITH SHARPIES!

 "The Earth Tumblers 1"  Julie Jacobsen

This has taken me a while to complete-this little project.  I wanted to do another fanciful composition.  So I opened my old sketch books, again, and looked for a fun image.  Once I figured out what I wanted to do I started in with the Sharpies but I didn't really like how it was turning out (the second image in this post).  I didn't like the girl in front of earth because I felt she looked too dark.  Plus it looked to me like people playing with a ball-sort of.  I wanted it to be more of a galactic imagery (Chris' word: galactic).  This one is called "The Earth Tumblers 2".

These are the Earth Tumblers and I wanted them to appear as almost invisible when viewed from earth.  They cause a lot of good and sometimes not so good-depending on how they want to tumble things.  The Earth Tumblers come from their own planet, Tumbletest, and they are constantly being produced.  As soon as they mess with earth then they quickly evaporate into outer space-only to be created again and again.  So, no wonder our world is constantly in an uproar.  There are other Tumbletest planets in the other galaxies but this is the most active one.  Earth is so fun to upset.

If you look hard out into the night sky you might see the outline of a Tumbler.  They are there but hard to see.

This is the original drawing.