So I’m just getting my head back on here after IMC 2010. It was a strong start and a weak finish, as I’ve documented: on the last day, I had to wipe out my entire painting and start over because the grisaille hadn’t dried (in the darks) and it was impossible to work on. I could have left it for a month and continued, but I needed to try to get something done by the end of the day, and so I made the hard decision to take the turp rag to it and start again. What you see here is what I managed to do starting again from the drawing, with no underpainting, in one day. It’s a long, long way from where I envisioned it, and of course it’s far from finished, and I cringe a bit at showing it in this state, but there it is.
Greg Manchess took some pity on me and started it off, throwing down some very chromatic colors on the face that I wouln’t have thought of myself, then handed me the brush and said “continue.” I tried to go on in his style, which was very different from how I would normally approach it: no underpainting, no value studies, no premixed strings: just tube primaries around the outside of a palette and mixing by eye, using more big blocks of somewhat impressionist color and sacrificing planning and precision (of color) for speed and action, which is what this class teaches, and what the quick-turnaround world of professional illustration requires. You can’t tell your publisher that your grisaille needs another month to dry when the piece is due in a few days.
So, there it is, as it was as late as I could stay up on the last day. I do intend to re-do this piece, starting over with my original concept and just trying to execute it better. Things I will do differently this time:
1. Get better plywood to mount it to. The grain of the plywood somehow came right through the cardstock paper mounted to it, which surprised me. I guess the glue of the matte medium really sucks the paper down tight to its surface, so any tiny bump on the surface really will come through. I either need to really sand these boards down, or get smoother ones, or go back to masonite.
2. Paint the grisaille in acrylics, not oils. And maybe go back to umber rather than black and white, if I can figure out how to handle the ranges of darks that are darker than the umber itself, which has always puzzled me.
3. Take the time to do a highly-finished drawing before starting painting. The 9×12 charcoal study had some problems that were more evident when blown up to 18×24, especially in the hands, and I should make sure everything is much clearer before sealing it down.
I may need to re-shoot some reference to try to solve some other lighting problems, and focus issues, but I do think what I have here compositionally and in the pose is good, and I want to stay with it… just do a much better job.
I complained to Graydon that I’m really not a very good painter, and he gave me the green light to work a little more weekly painting practice in with the drawing and anatomy study, which will be going on for a good long while still.
Congrats on getting it done. It would have been easy, under the circumstances, to say “screw it” and give up, but you stayed with it and saw it through.