Building a Painting
This was a commission I did a few years ago. Out of necessity, I worked from a photo. However, I did not, nor do I ever project or trace. I’m not passing judgement on artists who do, it’s a totally valid choice, however, my feeling is that drawing is a skill that I must maintain, or
I lose it. Pavarotti once said that he works on his voice by vocalizing every day. He said that if he misses a day, it can serve as rest. If he misses two, he notices and if he misses three the audience notices. Drawing is the foundation of representational painting. If I go a period of time without drawing, I lose that sureness that comes from doing it every day and people do notice.
My painting approach itself involves four passes which I liken to building a home.
I think of them in terms of framework, walls, structure and making it a home.
STAGE 1 Framework: First Pass, Part I.
The goal for the first pass is a simple twodimensional representation of the subject with a clear representation of the lights and darks and a careful attention to the overall proportions, not only of the figure, but also of composition itself. Very often, I begin the first pass using soft vine charcoal. Because I’m not using solvents, the charcoal gives me back the little extra freedom and flexibility that I lost because I’m not using solvents. The main goal during the charcoal stage is placement and proportions. Not just the anatomical proportions, but also the proportions of the picture itself. The vine charcoal allows for easy changes.
STAGE 2 Framework: First Pass, Part II .
Once I’m done with the charcoal drawing, I lightly brush the charcoal away with a cheap chip brush from the hardware store. This leaves a ghost on the canvas. Then using a bristle brush, I redraw the lines using thin paint. My goal is to make a clear distinction between what is dark and what is light. I am also spending a lot of energy getting the proportions right. At this stage, I’m not thinking of the image as being three dimensional. I am purposely seeing the image as a flat representation of what is in front of me. Seeing the image as a collection of flat shapes and lines in front of me allows me to more easily acquire the correct proportions.
STAGE 3 Walls: Second Pass. Still thinking of the image in front of me as a collection of flat shapes, I begin to place flat color shapes on the canvas. This is what we call a dead color layer. Most of this color will be covered in the next layer. In important areas, the flat shapes will correspond with the planes, and in the other areas, they will just be areas of local color and mid-tones. I don’t feel I need to waste time defining all the planes of the secondary areas. This is a good time for me to experiment with my color mixes to see what colors I need to mix. I’m not a fan of color formulas. I want to paint what I am seeing, truthfully and then take liberties if I need to make it work as a painting. I keep the paint thin during this phase. This prevents the paint from working against me in the subsequent layers because of conflicting brush marks in the wrong places. Working thin at this stage also prevents me from getting too opaque and losing the luminosity I gained from working on a light surface tone.
When I’m done with this layer, I reassess the painting as a whole. I’m looking for weaknesses or problems in the painting itself. For a
commissioned portrait like this one, I would have no choice but to fix the problems. In a noncommissioned studio painting, this is the point where I would decide if this painting is going to be worth taking the time away from my family and from my gazillion other projects in order to finish it. When I was younger, I would plow through everything for the sake of finishing. Now that I’m older, I’m more frugal with my time.
This is where most of my time goes into the painting. This is where I methodically plod my way through my painting starting at one area and working my way through the painting, bit by bit. There is no more jumping around at this stage. I want to work out and finish each area bit by bit, not moving on until each area is resolved to my level of taste. Every bit that I work out, every problem I solve, then becomes an area that I can count on as a guide for the next area. I feel that every mark I make, every line I draw, every color I put down is part of a whole. I must always consider the whole when I’m making a painting. Therefore, I never make a mark intuitively or without considering other areas. Before I make any mark, I’m asking myself where it is in relation to everything else. I’m asking what value it is in relation to other values. I ask what color, hue and temperature it is in relation to everything else. This prevents me from painting a nose that doesn’t fit on the face, or eyes that don’t match up, and it prevents me from having spots that jump out of place. I don’t want to be painting an eye and then a nose, and a mouth, each as if they were on their own. Though I may be working only on a nose or an eye at one time, every mark I make on that nose or eye will be compared to many other things so that I never lose its relationship to the whole.
At this point, I am also now thinking structurally, sculpturally. It’s no longer just flat shapes in front of me. I am now considering the form. I’m thinking of what is in front of me as three-dimensional forms. A cylinder, a cube, a sphere, etc. However, if it is a sphere, it’s not just any sphere, it’s the one in front of me. If it’s a cylinder, it’s not any cylinder, it’s the specific cylinder in front of me. I do this in order to control the form and to make it feel more dimensional. It also helps me avoid weird lumps and bumps. It provides clues as to how to solve what I am working on. However, when I get in trouble with proportions, I go back to thinking about flat shapes. Flat shapes are much easier to measure and reproduce.
STAGE 5 Making it Home: Fourth Pass
Portrait of Dorothy, oil on linen, 24 x 30" (61 x 76 cm). Courtesy of Matthew and Dorothy Dougherty.
This is the step where I make the house into a home. It’s where I try and bring things together where I try and make it a work of art. This is where I look for lumps and bumps, where I look to see if my colors form a harmony or if there are things in my painting that are dissonant or don’t fit in.
I look for ways to enhance the painting, to make it better as a whole. I make choices about the whole. Some places might need to be simpler with less detail while others might need more time spent resolving them. At this stage most of the changes will be a glaze here, or a scumble there. Maybe some scraping with a palette knife. Or worst-case scenario, the whole repainting of an area.
Up until now, I’ve only considered the subject, not as a person, but as a collection of forms and shapes. Now it is a person to me, a human being with a unique personality. What parts of the person can I enhance, what changes can I make to show that this is a unique individual? In this case, I decided to play up Dorothy’s wonderful hands and the translucency of the skin as the light shines through them. I glazed down some of the darks to unify them. And I went in and added the patterns on the cloth using glazes.