This is the end product of a demo I posted on another site. The process I used was to do a series of acrylic washes until I thought I knew the person I was looking for in this painting. Then started to build in oil, leaving some of the acrylic visible. I kept from moving away from my original idea by avoiding the urge to make everything perfect. I thought about making the hand smaller or detailing the neck line of his T-Shirt, but it remained just a thought. I had the feeling that I was done and it was time to move on to something new.
How I Stop and Start Something New
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Bob,
It’s too bad you can have the final result and the intermediate ones, too. After this last one, I think I like #6 best. The changes are fascinating; the person seems to keep getting younger. Your process also sounds very interesting. Did your idea of who you were looking for change, or did your representation come to match the idea, or both? Were you surprised by the endpoint?
Bob, it’s very interesting seeing the different stages of this painting. Like w/ some of Steve’s sequences, I’d be curious to see this as a mini-movie.
Have any of you seen that film of Picasso drawing and painting? I think it was made in the fifties. Even in b&w it’s fascinating. He draws on the backside of a sheet of stretched paper, and all you see is the lines appearing as the drawing progresses. There’s another part of the film where he’s painting, and you see (from the front) timelapse photography of the work developing.
The Mystery of Picasso by Claude Renoir.
Terrific: with the range of Confidence and Uncertainty.
Bob,
What you capture here that I can’t see in the earlier versions is the sad young eyes. I agree that the subject becomes younger and younger, which makes the big hands even more poignant — that gawky age. Is this what you intended?
I just glanced at your site and didn’t read the text, but I will go back to it.
Is there a reason why you start with acrylics — why not just do oils from the beginning?
And indeed, the Picasso flick is amazing.
Steve
This was an unusual situation for me because it was not until I looked at all of the photos could I tell home much I appreciated where I was at stage 6. I wish I could have both paintings. I found the person I was looking for and he was a surprise, he looked younger and well fed. But I was able to keep (I think) the doubt in his eyes.
When I was living in the bay area there was a film done of me painting, which was later shown to area school kids. I was a little stunned seeing how I worked. It looked like I knew what I was doing, which is never the feeling I have when I am painting. I never received a copy of the footage.
June
Back in New York we would trick our brains and try to get away from painting exactly what was in front of us. One method we used was to paint directly on top of another painting that had been turned upside down. I would find that the abstract images of the first painting, the color and layout would influence how I interpreted the model.
Painting first with acrylic accomplishes something similar. Sounds crazy, but it is almost like a collaboration. With the acrylic I am an artist who is little reckless with color and shapes. I am not concerned with getting something right. When I switch to Oil, I think more about my color choices and brush work. I think about what areas of the acrylic work do I want to stay behind. I just two different guys painting on the same canvas.
Yes I loved the Picasso film.
The series is fascinating. What a treat to allow us to follow the painting. It reminds me of Hanneke’s posts last year showing us different stages of the same painting.
Bob,
I can enlarge each picture except #6.
Bob,
Yes, the doubt is always there, but there seems to be no fear of the unknown, rather calm and acceptance.
Your re-painting and your idea of the collaboration of the two media are both fascinating.
Ah, Bob, I do understand now why the acrylics. Not that they would work the same way for me, or it’s improbable that they would. But I have all kinds of tricks I use so the canvas isn’t totally blank — I underpaint, I do watercolor that I paint over with oils, when I’m doing textiles I often begin with a hand-dyed fabric (a bit like underpainting only more mottled) and let it help me over the obsessions that the early stages can bring on.
Thanks for the insights. And I might have to try turning a lost cause upside down and painting over it. I have a lot of lost causes….
Birgit
I’ve e-mailed you #6. Doing this series was fun.
Steve, I glad you get what I mean about the collaboration. I’ve always struggled when trying to explain this to non artist.
June
The painter Dan McCaw, says that we need to fill our studio with paintings that are bad and lost causes. He some how uses them to inspire him. Another painter I know would paint over his paintings with a dark think green color, let it dry for a week or more and then selectively wipe clean with medium. That brave!!
Bob,
What a fantastic portrait. This one really gets to me. I think it has to do with the distortions which somehow bring the picture completely out of the ordinary.
Bob,
Daydreamer is a good painting. I liked the imperfections in the facial features. I liked the under painting used to develop the skin texture.