No, not the Johnny Depp film from the late 90's, this a different nick of time. (I remember that movie being pretty good, but after rewatching stuff I liked as a teenager I'm finding more and more that I had really crumby taste in movies as a teenager. Anybody?)
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| I walk away from my 1990's style computer for 4 days and the lousy cobs have made their webs all over the thing |
Oh boy, it's been a little while huh? sorry about that, I didn't anticipate doing the artwork would take so much time away from posting. I don't know why I didn't factor that in...Anyway, things have been a little trickier, this first week, than I had anticipated. I feel like I spend a LOT of time vegging out in front of the TV or playing on the computer. So I really thought that just cutting that stuff back would leave me plenty of time for art. I think I was oversimplifying the problem a bit. I get home from work about 5:15 and by the time I chat with my wife about our day, take the dog out, figure something out for dinner and maybe (and this is a big maybe) do some dishes or regular tidying stuff around our place, there's not really a ton of time left. Throw in an errand or any additional projects and it's bedtime! So, during the week is going to be tricksy but I will figure it out. Maybe I'll need to reorganize my to-do list of art projects from a few posts ago to try and arrange it so the really demanding projects fall over the weekend. I am NOT, however, going to just change the rules. I set these goals and I WILL follow my rules until the amendment period next week and do my tweaking then.
Enough about my personal whoas, ONTO THE ARTING!
I said back when I was writing the rules that I was going to need to take extra care to prepare these projects so that I can get the painting part done in the 4 hours I originally allotted myself. For a while now, I've working with my Dad on and off to build an electric guitar from scratch. Aside from all the little woodworking tricks I'm learning from working so closely with an experienced guy like my Dad, I am also learning that I jump into projects way too fast. I want to get to the good part, lets get dirty, make some sawdust, smear some paint, jump to the gratification part. At first, it was aggravating to me that Dad wanted to be so planned and measured every step of the way, but now that we're nearly 2 years in and almost to the halfway mark of our guitar project, I can see the value in not just diving in, screwing things up because there was no plan and then spending 50% more time on the project just to fix boo-boos you wouldn't have made if you just took a second to think. (I almost sound like a real grown-up right now huh?) So I'm trying to apply that to what I'm doing here. I've only left myself a short amount of time to paint, so everything needs to be perfect to start.
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| This is the guitar we're building after 2 years of hard work (we're really being careful to plan it out) |
The part of watercolour that I have cut corners on in the past has been masking things off properly so I can paint parts with absolute abandon and not worrying about mucking up the rest of the painting. A lot of the time I don't even mask, I just start painting because I have enough control to just stay away from things I don't want to paint yet. This has worked out just fine and when I'm in mindless paint mode (the same trance I enter where I'm known to drool on my paper or drink my watercolour water) I don't really notice the extra time it takes to be meticulous with layer after layer of paint. For this project I'm gonna mask the heck out of his thing so I can splash paint all over the kitchen table if I want and still not botch the areas I don't want to paint right away!
For this operation I am using a masking solution or "liquid frisket". It's essentially a really rubbery rubber cement that is a little more watery in consistency.
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| The stuff I use dries orange so you can find it later to remove it. I suppose it still might be tough to use this stuff when painting an orange...guess I'm lucky I'd rather enjoy a nice glass-shard sandwich than do another still life. |
I also will use frisket film for blocking out the big areas, this is a clear film that has adhesive on the back. It doesn't stick very well to the rough paper I'm using so I go around and seal the edges with the liquid frisket to stick it down.
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| It's a little hard to see the film in these pictures, but I assure, its there. |
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Now I'm all set to paint in the background. It's a lot of greenery, leaves and fronds, somewhere exotic. Well, I mean, not too exotic, they're both in long sleeves... I don't know. I can rough this in as wet and messy as I want now, knowing that the subjects of my painting are safe from wayward brush strokes.
The whole masking process was about an hour and a half. I know you're thinking "Well golly, you don't sound like you're saving time at all" and you're right, but one of the key points of this initiative is to get faster at painting. If I still need to get faster at prepping when I'm done, I'll start The PrepFast Initiative in July. Until then, I'm going to take my time so I end up with quality, thought out work.
Once I get the background painted in to my liking, It's time to remove the masking. The Film pulls up easily enough, but the liquid stuff will need to be rubbed away with a rubber cement pickup. I back that over it a couple times out in the parking lot and viola! Just kidding, a rubber cement pickup is basically a hunk of dried rubber cement that grabs the frisket as you swipe it over it and it balls up and comes off. Before starting this, I go in and darken some of the more critical lines because the rubber of the pickup will erase them and then all my prep will have been for nothing. I didn't take a picture of this, ( must have gotten too late )
The next night (thursday) I had to mask the floral pattern at the bottom that will stay paper white and then I painted the shirts in.
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| The floral pattern on the sides there will be black, so I don't need to mask them. |
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The rest of the painting went pretty well. I tried to layer the colors instead of just mixing them on my pallet. The groom's ear got away from me a little but I reeled it back in with some white gouche. (really opaque tempera paint) When I finished, I used the pickup again to remove the rest of the frisket (ooh, my aching wrist!)
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| Finally captured the elusive "my right hand" in its native environment...simply breathtaking. |
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...And here is the final piece:
Likes: It looks like the people it's supposed to be (always a plus in a portrait). Graciously, both their eyes are closed, so no chance of "wonky eye syndrome" some of my past subjects have suffered from. I spattered a few layers of green paint to give it a kind of verdant jungle feel, that turned out well.The careful masking really paid off, the white really pops.
Dislikes: I'm my biggest critic and there's always something that picks at me about every piece so don't try to convince me otherwise. I didn't really capture the love from the original. They don't look like they're sharing a cute forehead kiss in my painting. They look sad, like he's consoling her. "Cousin Matt is coming for a visit, what are we going to do?" "I know honey, be strong"*peck*
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