Artist's Drawing & Inspiration
Puppeteer
A bird in the hand …
Eating fish and chips on the beach was the best way to gather resource photos for this painting. Seagulls appear from seemingly nowhere once the strong whiff of this traditional beach picnic is in the air. I took a lot of photographs of seagulls then made sketches to familiarise myself with the “seagullness” of the bird. The idea for this painting was the result of playing around with one image of a seagull which has starred in a number of my works. I like the idea of change it, change it again then do the unexpected. Explore, experiment and enjoy, I say!
STEP ONE
I chose a rough paper to work on because I want to utilise the textural effects of scrumbling onto a rough surface with the pastels. After much cogitation and sketching, I decided on the composition, applied gesso then mooshed (technical term) on a rough base colour of pale oranges in acrylics then sketched in the image. Actually the base colour is carefully chosen to give some warmth to the overall effect and as a contrast to my dominant colour which will be greenish blues. The gesso and acrylic paint help stop the oil pastels from being soaked into the watercolour paper and make it easier to apply and blend colours. I’m experimenting again, but I can’t help myself and hope it all works.
STEP TWO
For this step I need to think ahead and plan base colours where I am going to use sgraffito for some fine lines in certain areas. With oil pastels, doing fine lines can pose problems, particularly on the rough paper I have chosen. I then place local colour in the background but already design problems are showing themselves.
The sectioning below the seagull doesn’t work and will need to be
altered so...more cogitation. On the up side: A better effect for the lower background area is developing, which will fit in nicely to the required changes. I love happy accidents and surprise ideas that come with experimenting!
STEP THREE
Hmm .... Some elements are still not quite right which requires much thought. Art seems to be 90 per cent thinking and 10 per cent doing! I’m beginning to shape and shade the focus areas, putting in nuances of undertones and colour that I want peeking through in the final stages. At the same time, the background is being gradually altered to better facilitate the composition, although it’s not quite there yet. What worked on the thumbnail sketches isn’t translating quite as I’d hoped.
STEP FOUR
There’s usually a point at which I want to throw my hands in the air and quit ..... This is it! The hand is taking a dominant position in the composition which is not helped by the warm skin colours so I decide to scrumble over the hand with pale blues and white which pushes the hand and controls into a secondary role. I have also decided that the puppet strings should remain understated. The angled water area is also not working so .... more scrumbling.
STEP FIVE
Okay, I’m over it. Some strategic scrumbling is bringing my vision back into focus and adding a pleasing texture to the background. Phew! I want to merge the hands into the background and not detract from the seagull while blending the sky and sea together without any definite boundaries. I am now feeling my way through the painting making judgements and decisions as I go. I love it when I reach this stage: I’m in the zone.
STEP SIX
I’m working over the whole painting bringing the vision more and more into focus. I’ve scratched back into the pastel on the beak and legs to bring out the underlying oranges and further putting in lost edges, particularly on the hand, which is still too dominant. I also want the left wing to move back into the distance and bring the right wing forward through sharpness of edges. There is now a lot of scratch back and blending happening in order to define or soften shapes and edges. Patterns of lights and darks also require more balance, however this will develop during the next layers. The oil pastels are also beginning to slip and slide a bit, not really giving any
coverage. This tells me it’s time to let the painting sit for a while so the pastels can dry out a bit and that I should now be swapping to the softer oil pastels: the Senneliers! Yay!
If necessary, I can scrape off layers of oil pastel to make changes.
FINAL STEP
Until now the seagull, my focus area, has remained very rough looking. Now it is time to make it shine while still working on the background to adjust tones. Scrumbling blues and white over the hand and puppet controls sends this area into the background while the water area in the lower part of the painting beneath the seagull, is given more definition. Although I’m not yet happy with the effect, I will wait until the seagull is a bit more resolved before I decide what changes are required.
Various tones of orange and dark phthalo blues and greens are worked into the undersides of the seagull’s body, head and legs. This will affect the subsequent lighter colours that will then overlay these areas giving shape and form to the bird. Once this is done the darkest areas such as the wing tips, beak and shaded parts of the legs are placed before adding the highlights, mostly in pure white but in some areas, my palest yellow is used.
The painting still lacked a certain “je ne sais quoi” so to further focus attention on the seagull I added some action in the form of splashing water below the bird. This was achieved with lots of white with some pinks, yellows and oranges to add liveliness to the water turbulence. Cropping the painting gave a better composition, relegating the somewhat overpowering image of the hand to a more supporting role.
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Email: studioc@hotmail.com.au