Saturday, February 21, 2009
MORINAGA'S MILK CARAMEL
Here it is!! Lana and I are quite proud of this one, sorry the photos don't really do the piece justice. Original painting is 37" by 17.25" oil on MDF, check out the progress photos in the archive if you want to know how it got to this stage.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Art by Commission
You may have noticed our new link in the right-hand sidebar--Brett and I are getting ready to start marketing our new project Art by Commission, and staking out a small place on the internet with the AbC blog. Basically this idea is to do some more traditional art-- still life, landscape, and portraits for anyone who commissions us. Each commission will be evaluated on a case by case basis; we will cater as much as possible to a patron's wishes.
There are more printed things to come, but currently we've created this flyer for hanging up in public places.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Lana's current palette
Here is my palette--
Not all the colors on here are wet. The swatches on the edges simply give me a consistent place to put the paint. The globs are wet though. I took this after working on the teacup. As for the order, I focused on temperature more so than value, but next time I will make sure each hue goes in consecutive temperature and value if possible. It seems to jump around a lot.
In order to clean the palette, I simply scrape it down a bit, try to make it smooth, but not necessarily take it back down the the wood. This wood was cheap and the veneer has scraped up. So I am looking forward to my next palette. I will probably change the shape of it a little. I was not using medium of any kind on this day, just paint. The paper towel serves as both a cushion for my thumb when I'm holding it (the palette hole marks up my hand :C) and also a quick cleaner for my brushes. Turpenoid gives me a headache, so I am trying to use it as little as possible.
And I definitely learned, since undergrad, that black is a very important paint to use, contrary to black killing color or being too strong.... Black is OK.
By the way, to create your own palette, visit this useful info--William Whitaker's Palette at Concept art Enjoy!
Not all the colors on here are wet. The swatches on the edges simply give me a consistent place to put the paint. The globs are wet though. I took this after working on the teacup. As for the order, I focused on temperature more so than value, but next time I will make sure each hue goes in consecutive temperature and value if possible. It seems to jump around a lot.In order to clean the palette, I simply scrape it down a bit, try to make it smooth, but not necessarily take it back down the the wood. This wood was cheap and the veneer has scraped up. So I am looking forward to my next palette. I will probably change the shape of it a little. I was not using medium of any kind on this day, just paint. The paper towel serves as both a cushion for my thumb when I'm holding it (the palette hole marks up my hand :C) and also a quick cleaner for my brushes. Turpenoid gives me a headache, so I am trying to use it as little as possible.
And I definitely learned, since undergrad, that black is a very important paint to use, contrary to black killing color or being too strong.... Black is OK.
By the way, to create your own palette, visit this useful info--William Whitaker's Palette at Concept art Enjoy!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Lollipoop
This one has been funny. Brett is poking this one because somehow the extremely thick cad red has dried in a few days (I don't think that color dries very quickly...). We speculate that this is attributed to the absorbency of the acrylic paint wash-in and gesso underneath...
There's a neat technique being done on this... stolen from ideas and practice about house painting.... more on that later (maybe).
Techniques unrelated, I think I'd like to paint some taffy after this!
There's a neat technique being done on this... stolen from ideas and practice about house painting.... more on that later (maybe).
Techniques unrelated, I think I'd like to paint some taffy after this!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Stick it to the buttcup
I put a dent in some of the work on the teacup, painting some wet into wet on some of the rims and handle. Blargh! Also, prior to this, I did the whole inside of the cup.
The blue in the saucer has been glazed in by Brett but will require more work... much like painting back into the bon-bon's red glaze.
This blue glaze was bad. It was like being in a hospital and your patient goes into cardiac arrest or some crazy shock and you have about 1 second to rig up some crazy way to jump start his heart again... ANYWAYS, in case anyone EVER needs to know this, I shall explain:
The blue glaze took two attempts. The first was liquin, in hopes of making it dry much faster. That failed since that would not become smooth (brush strokes). The alkyd type mediums have a tendancy to layer on themselves... creating an uneven covering (that is unless you are glazing like a 2 x 2 " area..)
The second was going to be lindseed oil but since that didn't stick to the too-dried grisaille by this time, we used a combo of liquin and lindseed oil. Well, we had to sacrifice.... there were brush strokes... But then we almost dropped dead because it was dry the next morning.
One way, or another....
...I'm going to drag this painting to the finish...kicking and screaming.
The blue in the saucer has been glazed in by Brett but will require more work... much like painting back into the bon-bon's red glaze.
This blue glaze was bad. It was like being in a hospital and your patient goes into cardiac arrest or some crazy shock and you have about 1 second to rig up some crazy way to jump start his heart again... ANYWAYS, in case anyone EVER needs to know this, I shall explain:
The blue glaze took two attempts. The first was liquin, in hopes of making it dry much faster. That failed since that would not become smooth (brush strokes). The alkyd type mediums have a tendancy to layer on themselves... creating an uneven covering (that is unless you are glazing like a 2 x 2 " area..)
The second was going to be lindseed oil but since that didn't stick to the too-dried grisaille by this time, we used a combo of liquin and lindseed oil. Well, we had to sacrifice.... there were brush strokes... But then we almost dropped dead because it was dry the next morning.
One way, or another....Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The 10 o'clock news
This is the news hour with Brett + Lana
As for the progress on the other work....
-The teacup remains a constant adversary to our existing painting processes. This really turned into one of those paintings which seeks to challenge its maker and test whatever he or she is made from. Of course we have news for IT and IT will look great despite the challenges IT gives. None of it is all that interesting to blog about....just wait to see the photographed stages this thing has undergone.
-The Morinaga milk caramel box is virtually finished, we are just waiting for the 2nd coat of background color to dry before putting on the finishing touches. It looks very nice..photos coming ASAP.
-The dot candy, which measures a whopping 8ft by 2ft, is all completely blocked in and just today the second layer of background color has been applied and fanned out. It is important to complete that stage of the painting first for this one, as transparent shadows will have to be glazed over top of the background. Despite its size, it is a fairly simple piece to make and should be free of complication.
-The bon-bon has been varnished and is hanging in the cottage :)
-Now we take you outside to get the weather report from the ducks and bunnies. WOW its an amazing sunset, just look at those clouds, any painter can surely be reminded of the work of Joesph Mallord William Turner and Fredrick Church.
As for the progress on the other work....
-The teacup remains a constant adversary to our existing painting processes. This really turned into one of those paintings which seeks to challenge its maker and test whatever he or she is made from. Of course we have news for IT and IT will look great despite the challenges IT gives. None of it is all that interesting to blog about....just wait to see the photographed stages this thing has undergone.
-The Morinaga milk caramel box is virtually finished, we are just waiting for the 2nd coat of background color to dry before putting on the finishing touches. It looks very nice..photos coming ASAP.
-The dot candy, which measures a whopping 8ft by 2ft, is all completely blocked in and just today the second layer of background color has been applied and fanned out. It is important to complete that stage of the painting first for this one, as transparent shadows will have to be glazed over top of the background. Despite its size, it is a fairly simple piece to make and should be free of complication.
-The bon-bon has been varnished and is hanging in the cottage :)
-Now we take you outside to get the weather report from the ducks and bunnies. WOW its an amazing sunset, just look at those clouds, any painter can surely be reminded of the work of Joesph Mallord William Turner and Fredrick Church.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Painting number 5
Lana and I have begun work on painting the whirly pop, it has been going very well so far. One day in on this, the surface of the panel was much more difficult to bring up to completion then the drawing or the under-layers. The sanding pad was getting gesso built up in it and wound up digging out little pits in the surface. Seeing as how it is not much fun sanding in the freezing cold we decided to bring it up to the studio and slake a layer of gesso over the surface and let it dry. Below is the current state, the background color is final and will look great with the finished painting candy even if it looks a little off right now.
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