08 December 2008

three heart circle

Acrylic on gessoed canvas, 14" x 18".

this started as an anatomical heart in a yellow flamelike circle, with the surrounding black mixed by overlapping yellow, red orange, magenta, blue violet, blue and green paints.

the two diagrammatic hearts were added as i drew it, but i may take them out and redo the painting.

i worked mostly with paste acrylics, so i let brush textures come out in every part. it would be fun to repeat this by pouring the colors, but the canvas was preframed and somewhat slack, so liquids would have puddled on it.

i liked the effect of the "chromatic black" and i am thinking of playing around with it using a more geometrical or process control of the mixtures. still i like the cartoonish effect of this painting.

05 December 2008

self

Watercolor & charcoal on Arches CP 300gsm, 14" x 10".

this is the first time i've tried an object tracing as the basis for a drawing.

i laid the glasses on the paper and traced the outside contour with carbon pencil, then added the interior contour. then the whole face was drawn using the glasses as proportional references.

background is cobalt turquoise and cadmium yellow; shirt is ultramarine blue; flesh is manganese violet and raw sienna, darkened with burnt sienna, hair is ultramarine and burnt sienna. glass frames are burnt umber and cadmium red.