Two New Paintings

Just wanted to show what the tennis shoe looked like after it was framed. Glenn helped me redo an imperfect frame. The inner mat is purple and the frame matches the shoe laces. I thought it needed something less traditional.

This is from a photo Glenn took at Oxbow. Photo is excellent. It is a pearl crescent butterfly on wildflowers. The butterfly wing span is probably just over an inch. This is for the Oxbow Show in Lawrenceburg June 23-25.

FINISHING THE 55 FORD TRUCK

I did a lot of finishing touches here. I removed all the miskit after I put in the background. So here's the rundown:

Background: I started with a piece of tracing paper to decide how I wanted my background. I set the tracing paper over the truck, then experimented. Doing it on tracing paper lets you see if you have the perspective correct before committing it to the paper. To find my horizon line I tried to figure out where my eye level on the truck would be....probably around the level of the medallion on the hood. Since all the background elements are made up, I needed to be sure if I put in a building, animals, or other items that they fit the angle and perspective of the truck. So decide where you want to put things on your tracing paper first.

Also decide the placement of your elements. Try to avoid lining up hills, trees, or fences with horizontal lines in the truck. In other words, don't end a hill at the roof or other line in the truck. Also, choose colors that will enhance the truck, not fight it for attention. Don't paint a value that is too close to the value of the truck.

I did a wash of cerulean for the sky, pulling out some faint clouds with a large, thirsty brush. Then I put some faint golden hills beneath the sky, and some dulled green trees in faintly under the hills. Think about aerial perspective. The farther back your trees, hills, etc., the duller in color and less detailed they will be. I put in a faint pond on a dull green field and added some fence posts.

For the foreground, I drybrushed some burnts sienna, leaving some white spots. While wet I spattered some burnt sienna, red, and greens. Then when it dried I spattered some more to create the feeling of gravel. Then I added some grasses poking through the gravel. Make sure to have some shadow underneath the back tires so they don't lok like they are floating in air.

A word of caution on backgrounds. Don't just add something because it's in the reference or because you  think it would look good. If it doesn't add to the composition, then don't put it in. Or put it in a different place. On a small picture like this, only add what is going to improve the composition or the feeling you are trying to convey.



DETAILS: I removed all miskit. To get the rust on the white painted grill, I softened the paint in the dark areas above each grill piece and pulled some of it out onto the white to dull the white. If it needed rust, I added some lunar earth or burnt sienna/French ultramarine.

 I added rust to the bars over the rectangular mirror and to the small square mirror. I used a dulled yellow for the rectangular mirror. I painted the amber pyramid lights at the top. For the headlights, I painted the chrome by painting the bottom blue and putting in some reflections. On the glass I lightly shaded the top half and left most of the bottom half white. I painted in the dark part of the windshield wipers and carefully painted the darks in the V8 sign. I added a little detail to the wheels to make them pop out a little.  Then I redarkened parts that I thought needed to have a little more emphasis, like behind the front tire. I put shadow in underneath the Ford sign on the side panel.

On the window wipers chrome I cheated just a bit and used white ink pen. I just can't paint that small!

I did demo how to use a razor blade/exacto to scrape some white into parts of the rust on the front bumper. You can also scrape a bit of white into the gravel area for more texture.

1955 Ford Truck

When I was looking at the photograph again, I noticed that something I thought was a yellow window is actually part of the truck: it's a side mirror on (my) right. I liked it and decided to pencil it in. You can see it in this picture. I will miskit it because I don't want to lose those lines doing the background. 

For those who like to work ahead a little, continue painting the rust in the technique you liked best. I decided that I liked putting the rust in on the white, letting it dry, and then painting the truck color and blending it into the rust. All miskit is still on. I painted the rust on the wheels, bumper, any place there was rust. I did put a coat of dark on the tires, making sure to leave some marks for the tread. 

And because it was looking a little undefined to me, I put some of the dark lines in: around the window (don't do it there if you are going to work more in the window area); under the hood; around the door.

If you want your truck to be similar to this color, I've put below some possible color combinations that would work. I realize we don't all have the same colors, so I know these should work for you. I mostly used cobalt teal with orange, then darkened it with some pthalo in darker areas. But I could have used any of these combinations. 

Next Thursday, we'll finish up details and background. 

STARTING THE 1955 C600 TRUCK

Here is a photo my husband took of a 1955 C600 truck in Guilford, Indiana. 

I changed it to black and white so I could see the values more clearly. Then I sketched it out and studied the details. Even though I may not use all the tiny details, I wanted to understand more about the vehicle before painting it. I asked questions about what some items were used for; I looked up Ford medallions and emblems on Google; and I looked up more detailed pictures of what this would look like. Then I created a picture on tracing paper and shaded in my darkest values and my midtones. I am NOT mechanical, so when I tackle something like this, I want to know all I can going in. 

You can see 5 Things Realistic Painters Do Well on Mind of Watercolor youtube channel

I miskited the chrome parts and anything that looked very white and sharp edged. I miskited the windshield wipers and mirrors, even tho some of that will be dark. I just don't want to paint around all those tiny things.

Then with burnt sienna and French Ultra Marine, I painted in the darkest darks. This helps me sometimes to see where I'm going in a picture. The dark under the front bumper is hard edged near the bumper, but fades softly toward the ground. I wanted it jagged because I want to put grass underneath. (The truck will eventually be put in a field)

For the window, I wet the window area, lay in a faint wash of turquoise, then while wet, I put in some ultramarine (but I wish I'd used cobalt) to darken the top of the window and create the illusion of the back and side windows. I added a little pink to the right side of the window and in the back window.

Cobalt teal blue with a little orange in it helped create the basic truck color. I wanted to show 3 ways of doing rust:

1. Wet in wet. Paint the item with the local color, then while wet, add burnt sienna in the rust areas, then add a bit of ultramarine to create rust. (See this on fender on my left).

2. Rust over a dry painted area. (That is what I will do on the door area...it wasn't dry yet)

3. Rust on a white area. The fender on my right was burnt sienna with ultramarine added to create rust. Also on the top of the cab. 

Choose the method that works best for you. 

The steering wheel and window details. Inside the front window I want the steering wheel to show, but not be too obvious. All I did was wet the wheel, and gradually dab in drab color until it got to be the shade I wanted. I don't want it hard edged, or it will not look like it is behind the glass. 

TENNIS SHOE TOUCH UPS

To touch up and finish the tennis shoes, I needed to make some corrections. I did not like the dullness around the bottom sides of the shoe, so I used Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to remove the dull paint. I also used it on the front middle of the shoe to remove hard lines.

On the shoe laces I used the same technique we used on the zebras, applying one color, then another, wet into wet. At first I was using a blue that was not on my original palette....BIG NO NO. It just looked weird. So I went back to the original colors I used in my pour. I lifted a few whites, darkened the dark parts of the shoe, and cleaned up the eyelet holes for the laces with some dark shadows. I also lifted some soft shoelace forms on the inside of the shoe. You can also see where I added the magenta (the color I used on original pour) around the toe and into the sides of it, to make it look like the color was glowing from the inside. I then strengthened the shadow under the shoe, and added a little more magenta and yellow on the toe. For a tiny bit of surprise color, I added a little yellow green at the top back of the shoe and on one of the laces.

Thinking of calling it "One Step at a Time" in honor of  those who are in a 12-step program for recovery.

ATOMIC TENNIS SHOE#2

Here it is after my second pour. Pouring means constantly making decisions about what to keep, what to miskit, what to pour on. You can "spot" pour by dripping into small areas with a dropper. Or you might decide to only pour one or two colors next time. It all depends on how your previous pour turned out.

On this one I added some more magenta in the center. Then I put miskit on more areas I wanted to save. I even put miskit on the background and pulled some of it back off.

Here is the "map" for the third pour, indicated by the yellow. To create an "explosive" effect, I applied miskit to the background, then, using my finger, I rubbed the dried miskit off areas ins streaks.

I wet the paper again and poured mostly blue, holding the paper upside down. I wanted it to pour away from the toe of the shoe, because I really liked that rainbow effect near the toe. After pouring, I brushed some blue around the botttom of the shoe to create the shadow, without getting more blue on the bottom of the picture. 

After everything was dry, I pulled off all the miskit. As you can see, the miskit pulled off

some of the color, but I was generally happy with the result. One thing I learned from this is to have pretty fresh miskit. It will peel off much easier.

Next week: Touching it up!

PAINTING THE NOSE/FACIAL PROPORTIONS

DRAWING FACIAL PROPORTIONS

This first picture shows how to "grid" the face. The picture on the left is 1" graph paper.

The picture on the right shows a rather mathematical way to place facial features. I put a piece of tracing paper over the line graph.

A. Starts with a circle 5 squares in diameter (see, math), with A as the radius. B is the right side of the radius. C. is the bottom of the circle--also the bottom of the nose. Below C are lines D and E, each an additional square down. F. cuts C and D in half. LineJK is the halfway point of the head, 3 1/2 squares from the top or bottom. If you set a compass on point J and make an arc from K to E (and also set on point K making an arc from J to E) you will makethe cheeks of the face and general chin line.

Here is a close up of this. The eyes are one square wide with a square in between. Generally, people's eyes are an eye width apart. 

I set another sheet of tracing paper over this grid and redraw the oval with eyes placed in the center.

The bottom of the nose is on line c. The mouth is placed between F and D. (1/2 square) Here are some proportions to observe. A triangle drawn from the outer part of one eye to the outer part of the other eye and then to the center of the bottom lip is an equilateral triangle. A square can be drawn from the pupil to pupil down to the corner of the mouth, and across the mouth. Generally there will be an eye width from the corner of the mouth to the edge of the jaw and all around the chin. 

The nostrils of the nose are generall straight down from the inner eye. And you can generally divide the face in thirds from hairline to eyebrow ridge; from eyebrow ridge to bottom of nose; and from bottom of nose to chin. (about 2 eye widths each) 

Lay another clean tracing paper over your basic face pattern and draw in the individual features. Ears generally go from the bottom of the eyebrow to the bottom of the nose. (I think I made my nose a little longer than I wanted to)After you have one oval pattern drawn, you can produce many faces just by putting tracing paper over it and making it individualized.

In drawing the nose, you can think of it as three balls. Face on, you can just draw around the bottom of the three balls to make the curves of the bottom nose. There is a trapezoid shaped part of the skull that comes between the eyes, making the V-shape of the nose. The smallest part of that is often across the pupils. Shade the bottom of the nose. The nostrils are more comma shaped than circles. They are shaded darker at the top than at the bottom. 

I've put my sketch onto paper and tinted it with a light flesh color. I am trying to find a value about 40% darker to create my first shadows. It's pretty dark in the upper part between the eye and nose at the V shape. I give the left (my left) plane of the nose a little shading, and give the ball beneath the nose some shading. Shade the little V above the lip. The nose almost always casts a shadow, and that is a little darker than the shade under the ball of the nose. Strengthen the curve around the nostrils, fading the shadow onto the cheek. Darken the nostrils at the top, allowing a little lighter at the bottom of the nostril. Go gently on the nose shading especially if it is a child or young woman.