Fur In The Paint

So here’s what they look like all framed up. I gave this painting to a gallery to sell though I did take it to the Stookey show in Des Moines where it was rather popular and we sold all the prints I brought of it.

There’s not really much to the start to finish for this piece but here they are.

The bottom most image is the most accurate color-wise as to what the original looks like. I was kinda surprised at how dark all my WIP’s were.

Well she’s coming along. I’m going to tempt the fates by saying that I am hopeful I will get her all finished up by this weekend. I washed in the base color of the neck after I took this photo and so really I have it (the neck) and finishing up the background left to do.

I am very pleased at how quickly this all has come together.

The working title and probable final title it Tree Topper. I think I never mentioned the size of this giraffe painting so at the moment (meaning I may trim a little off for compositional purposes) is 16 1/2 x 24.

To see a much larger view of this painting please visit my African Wildlife Art page on squidoo and scroll down to the bottom of the page to What’s On The Easel Now section.

So here’s what I’ve got by the end of today. I kept adding background color density, only to start saturating the board and pulling it right back off. So I finally decided to stop the madness and begin working on the critter portion of my painting. It’s pretty impossible to gauge hoe intense I want the background without the actually animal as part of it.

I haven’t done a piece with this soft pastel background on my giraffes yet and so I keep wanting to darken and intensify the colors. However it was the soft colors in my photo that really attracted me to this. So we’ll wait and see how it all plays out in the end.

And here’s a slightly closer look at the head.

So here is the early stages of my latest painting. A giraffe in case you couldn’t tell by the glossy vaguely giraffe-like shape on my suede board (err … not to mention the photos.) Because I am ever so confident that I will pull off a successful giraffe and a wobbly mass of jello-like insecurity when it comes to all of that background I decided to work backwards on this one. Plus I always like challenging myself with new … umm … well … challenges.

So the background is going in first and this is so far, what I’ve got.

Somehow the process is not nearly as magical as when I start with the eye and then the animal mysteriously appears. But I know if I can nail the background, the painting will be a success. Whereas if I nail the giraffe first I still have that mountain of personal heroics I need to conquer, which is otherwise known as completing the background.

And here’s a shot of my workstation. Now to be honest this is the last three paintings worth of watercoior pencils, inktense pencils and Neocolor II water soluble wax pastel crayons. Sometimes I can be a real slob.

NOTE: The 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke nearly drunk. I know that I’m addicted to something when the thought of swigging the stuff out of a ginormous bottle has now become a time saving device. (You know … as opposed to stopping and refilling a mug repeatedly.) I try to limit myself to a liter a day (1/2 the bottle) but occasionally I drink the whole thing.

Perhaps I should put in in a brown paper sack to hide my shame. But then again I just don’t care.

So next post will be the update on the giraffe painting as the bulk of this was written back a day or so and now the painting’s background is very nearly complete. Soon very soon I get to start on all that giraffey goodness.

So here it is from beginning to end. Starting something new today will let you know as soon as I have something worth commenting on.

Ha! I sure showed me.
So I thought ya’ll might be getting just a little tired of looking at the lions and since my folder says I have ten articles in draft I thought I’d select something that was about something other than my wip lion painting.

Me: Oh look there’s one on selling art. I open it. Completely empty other than the title. Hm.

Me: Okay so here’s one on Packing & Shipping Art. Excellent! Yup empty also. It turns out I have a folder full of “ideas” on articles not “actual” articles. (sigh)

Why this is … I don’t remember. I mean it’s not my usual way of doing stuff you know. I can only assume knowing that with old age my memory begins to slip and so I thought I’d play a practical joke on myself.

Boy we sure fooled us. Good one me.

So now I’m forced to create something with a lion painting wip as part of it because I’m totally too lazy to create an article from scratch on selling artwork today. Since it’s been forever since I did any This is how I do stuff posts I thought I’d go that way.

Note: This piece is done on suede (the shiny area is covered with frisket film) and with the exception of the eye, has been done completely dry. Kinda makes you wonder why I bother to use watercolor pencils at all huh? Well … I like to keep my options open.

The Rule of 3
To create the various shades of lion hair I’m using 8 different colors (more or less) In general I use a minimum of 3 colors for any given area. Pretty simple concept. I chose at least one each of the light, medium and dark colors.

So for the lightest fur I have a Caran d’Ache Cream & Orangish Yellow and Faber Castell Gold Ochre.

Medium Fur: Faber Castell Gold Ochre.& Raw Umber Plus Derwent Rexel Sepia

And for the Darkest: I use Inktense Dark Chocolate & a warmer chocolate but the actual pencil name has been worn off and the Derwent Sepia

So as I slip from lighter to darker areas I work down my hue intensity colors.

Note: No white or black has been used in the fur area

I think the biggest mistake newbies make when trying to create believable hair is to use too few colors. You need more than just highlight and shadow. Most animal and human hair is a myriad of colors and the trick is finding the right grouping while avoiding creating mud.

A wiser person than I would probably try a little something out on a scrap piece (in order to avoid creating mud) before committing it to the final work. But I think as we’ve already established with my empty draft folder articles, wisdom is not always my forte’.

UPDATED:
I thought perhaps I should throw in that the Rule Of 3 is something that I just made up. And honestly it’s more like a guideline than a rule. But it is how I create hair and most anything that I want a degree of realistic reflective light.

I suppose it should have been a lion and a lamb huh?

I cropped this image (instead of showing the whole board as I’ve done in the past) to give a (slightly) closer approximation to the finished image size. The legs on Mr. Awesome are only just blocked in as I figured I’d finish them when working in the stone so they’ll not be too cut and paste looking.

Soon I’ll begin the righthand lioness. And then … the universe implodes. Well maybe not. But I’ve yet to figure out my background. (sigh) If you want to view a bigger image of this painting just visit my African Wildlife Art Page and scroll down to what’s on the drafting table now.

Happy Easter Ya’ll!!

So I began her on Sunday and played a little more with the painting today though it was very overcast and so my lighting wasn’t the best. The below photo is todays progress.

Yup still trying to avoid using my drafting table lights so I will end up with a painting that looks good in natural light.

So here’s the progree so far. I am going to start working on the lioness on the left before putting in all the dark brown mane otherwise I’ll just end up tracking it all over my suede board.

Man I dislike doing long hair. I know you’d think with all the manes I painted in my life (meaning horses) long hair would be old hat by now.