I first stretched cotton duck canvas (see other demo for instructions on stretching) on 4ft x 6ft heavy duty supports. I opted for heavy weight canvas as this is a large painting. Its raw cotton so I painted on the gesso with a very firm 3 inch brush that I actually cut down a bit to make it harder. The goal is to squeeze the paint into all the cracks of the canvas. The first layer I applied the gesso in a diagonal fashion and then used a vertical stroke once it was moved around equally. This might seem easy, but care should be given to make sure the stroke is all the same way (in my case down) for the first finish on each layer.
This canvas was large enough that it was dry on the end I started when I finished. The second layer is the same as the first except I did the final stroke the horizontally. The third layer I finished with an up stroke. The sides are also gessoed to give a solid support, but one good layer is enough.
Its okay to drip and what not, but its extremely important to clean them up as they happen otherwise you'll end up with blobs on the canvas that can be quite tough to remove.
Once the gesso dried for a day I lightly sanded it until it felt somewhat smooth. I then thinned down some gesso with water and with a cloth I washed it over the canvas. The idea behind this is to give a final layer to any fibers that might have been opened with sanding.
Buying pre gesso canvas is a great alternative as its an art to do a premium job painting on the gesso, but a brushed on finish will allow me to do some interesting techniques later on. |  |
| Drawing and Composition: I've had this painting in my mind for nearly a year so it wasn't a problem working through the composition. Firstly I got my model to pose on site and we worked through some different compositions. I decided on this pose here and ran the scene on paper as a quick form composition to make sure its weight was good. Drawing techniques are not covered in this demo, but I used multiple sources - all of which I created for this scene. With a hard lead pencil I drew it straight out to canvas once I was happy with the placement of everything. Once the drawing was fairly true I used a piece of charcoal and outlined everything that has atleast one edge in a dark tone. The powder left from the charcoal will blend with the paint and make for interesting form transitions and aid in soft lights/darks. I shaded in a couple areas that have the darkest tones, but its optional. I figured out the hammer head was too small so I upped its size to be 25lbs (JH used either a 20lb or 14lb maul). |  |
| Due to the size I figured it best to work from top to bottom, background first, then figure, then refining details. I mixed a wash color that was 60% raw umber, 40% french ultramarine (blue). It looks black, but when the subtraction method is used later it will go to the brownish gray side. I cut an amount of white into it and with lots of thinner I applied it to the sky and used a towel to move it around evenly. I'm not concerned with rub marks, but I wanted a consistent tone with the right side slightly brighter. |  |
| The subtraction technique was used to suck out paint. See the wall composition demo step 4 for additional info. With a mostly clean brush I dipped it into thinner and painted on the light areas there and then used a paper towel to pick up the paint. It required a bit of rubbing and some correcting afterwards, but this will make a nice underpainting for the real sky. Notice I build a form thats either a cloud or perhaps the smoke from a train/steam engine; intentionally I want something that is either one. |  |
| Same thing here. The timbers I painted with that black I mixed and used the subtraction technique. I allowed about 20 mins of dry time after the first layer of black was on and when I sucked it out. The paper towel I was using was quite dirty which aided in adding to the random detail factor. The black areas were painted first and nothing was done to them. Later on I'll go back with a black and enhance much of the shadow and give details. I used a smaller angle brush for the subtraction and tried to create little interesting rail road timber marks that appeared truthful. |  |
| The lower area got a solid wash of burnt sienna and raw umber and I made the tree form similar to the timbers using the same color. Even thought the ground will not be burnt sienna I specifically picked this color as it'll give warmth to the ground and I'll use some knife work to scrape off paint as I put the dirt over the wash. I'll talk more about this later. |  |
| The sky is essentially dry so I mixed up 6 colors for it. Basically one set of 3 light colors and 1 set of 3 darkers colors. I applied the paint very dry with a firm filbert brush and let the background wash show through a little - see picture. The 3 colors of each set were used in different areas to give some very subtle differences. Their is no tonal difference in each set, but just a slight hue shift. You really can't see it, but it does make the painting more complex. This is the 2nd of 3 layers the sky will get. |  |
| Here I've applied some of each set of color. These colors are ever so slightly off (darker and browner) than the last layer. I've found that light paint goes better over darker paint and even the slightest difference will make a nice effect. Basically its the same principle as a black velvet Elvis painting, but no where near as extreme. When I get the 3rd layer on we'll be able to see this effect. |  |
| Done with 2nd layer on sky. The yellow in the digital is not correct; its more subtle. I blended with brush, fingers, and paper towels, but I was careful to not saturate the canvas with color. I wanted to leave some of that interesting underpainting to be visable in the small holes/cracks. |  |
| While working on the rest of the background I noticed an error in my original plan. The viewer was running back into the background and staying there. Some trees instead of flat rock forms will block the viewer enough to keep interest in the entire painting. I dry brushed over the background with assorted blues and earth tones that were mixed heavy with greys. Remember as things go back in distance they lose their contrast (blacks and whites both go to grey - on the blue side for landscapes I've seen). I washed over the ground again and built a couple little forms, but nothing super exciting here. |  |
Quickly I blocked in the hammer and shoes and got the lights/darks and forms correct on them. I noticed also that I was warping the perspective a bit on many of the timbers. I corrected this and will continue to refine these as I go. Both the verticals and horizontal lines got warped. Sometimes it hard to see these in a drawing, but once the forms start taking shape its easy to see problems. Keeping the paint thin helps in situations like this as you can paint over old stuff without any build-up issues. The pants are typical blue jeans, but will be quite worn and not so blue. I quickly painted the pants all black and remembered where the highlights were and easily rubbed off the paint with a paper towel. The color for this was 1/2 lamp black and 1/2 french ultramarine. They got a really nice tone right from the start and not much will be needed to refine them into finished once dry.
Notice that I have not worried about details with anything yet. I'm still in the underpainting phase - although much of this will remain as is. I'm going to use a "paint until it looks done" method rather than "paint everything and hope it works" method.
The hammer model was a 10lb garden variety, but I upped the size of the handle by 30% or so and increased the head size 100% or so. Basically I want the look of a 20lb hammer. |  |
| I mixed up excess of a medium brown that matched the background browns, but was slightly darker and has a more intense hue. Quickly I painted in the ground and carefully applied the paint to the shadow areas. This digital is quite dark, but the very bottom of the painting has this brown lighter and I brushed over some darker browns and slight violets on the left part. Working quickly I moved onto the next step. |  |
| Here we can see the brown and how the underpainting burnt sienna is showing through. With a brown of violet and raw umber I built up a couple darker areas and blended them in. I want the ground to be dry and mostly consistent, but I need some rocks to give it a little life. Here I used raw umber straight up to build some shadows that rocks will go over. In my years of painting I've used this technique several times and it consistently works very well in portraying random dry ground forms. Basically the shadows are in the darkened areas and now and with the original ground color I painted in rocks over the shadows. Its important to be random and make sure rocks are of varying sizes and some should contact others, etc. In other words do the exact opposite of Kinkaid. I mixed several highlight colors and painted each one on about 10% of the rocks for a total of 30%. Look down below for the finished result. This is the 2nd of 3 layers the ground will get. |  |
Face. My drawing skills are not as good as my painting skills so I decided to approuch the face by painting form and work it in a layer fashion. In general the face is in warm light so I washed it with burnt sienna. The darkest colors I blocked in with a very dark brown thinnly. The only concern I had was getting feature placement correct (hair line, eyes, eyebrows, lips, nostrils) and getting color down that seemed correct.
The hammer got its second layer as well while I was waiting. Basically I wanted to refine its form and give it some weight with shadows and highlights. This was somewhat experimental as I'm not sure exactly how far I want to go with the contrast on it. This is one of the paintings focals and will need strong contrast, but I figured I'd go about that slowly. Here its slowing how it would look in reality, but I forsee taking it beyond that. |  |
With darker colors than real life I painted in the rest of the face as the thin under coating was drying. This has Rodrick's shapes, but doesn't look like him yet and I'm not concerned about anything other than getting shadows down. It took about an hour on the face here. This is the 2nd of atleast 5 layers the face will get so be sure to keep the paint thin and use good paint.
You can see I changed the background and omitted the cloud form that was cutting the painting at the top. The sky is now more generalized, but has very subtle hue shifts from left to right. Basically I did this change because it was going to get more interest than I wanted on it. The color was moved into a humid evening light. |  |
| Bad digital, but I wiped over the face with a paper towl after a couple hours and removed some highlight areas and added very lightly some deep reds and oranges that'll show through in the final version. |  |
Shirt and hands. Hands I did the exact same as the face except I used slightly more reds in the paint. My concern with them was getting the fingers straight and showing a knuckle line.
The shirt is pretty straight forward. After examination is showing some blues, violets, oranges, earthy yellows, and dark tones in the blue range. Deciding that I wanted the shadows to be cool, but the highlights warm I figured it best to underpaint it on the blue end. Quickly I blocked in some of the shadows and lines. |  |
| Working quickly (paint still wet) I mixed up a lighter grey/blue that was washed over the entire shirt. My main concern was getting paint down evenly without boogering up the shadows too much. Right now I'm not sure how I want to build the shirt in regards to the sky. Most likely it'll have a slight outline that will separate if from the sky and create a nice painting effect that'll bring the character forward. I overpainted into the black areas a bit and fixed the hammer shaft a bit too. |  |
Here is just an overall view of everything. Notice changes to the sky. I also removed one of the logs on the dirt and I'm still continuing to straight up some of the perspective issues on the timbers. The little rock forms are also showing despite the quality of the digital. The areas of the shirt that will get the warmest of highlights I used the extraction technique to remove the underpainting. Originally this was not my plan, but figured it best to be consistent.
Next step is the longest and hardest for me. Painting the face and hands - I'm saving this for Saturday/Sunday. When done it'll look like John Henry (Rodrick), but will still need some warm highlights and small details.
The painting is about 1/3 of the way done now. You can see there are a tremendous amount of details that are missing and the forms are rough and unrefined as well as being darker than the finished painting. |  |
| 2nd layer of face. This is the hardest and most time consuming part I've done so far. Basically I want to define form and give John the appearance of a real person. Eyes were placed in as well as other features. It took some time to get these correct and I was very careful to not over work the canvas which would make it smoother than it should be. Forms were build with a simple palette of 4 colors that represented general skin tones. The next layer on the face will be the color layer. |  |
| I blended all the work I did with a thin bristle yet firm filbert brush. There really isn't a good way to explain the process here, but ever so slowly I studied the model and then moved the paint onto the canvas. As I look at this now I see there is still some structural work to do on the right eye, but I'm happy with it so far. It won't start looking like a person until the highlights are in. |  |
| Overall view. I worked the hands the same as the face except with a slightly different palette (more red) |  |
| Closeup of the hand. Notice it really doesn't look like a hand yet, but the structures are true. Remember that I just wanted to get structures down. Concern for color, light and surface will get painted later. When I do come back to the hands I won't need to look at any reference material and I can paint the exact lighting conditions I want as well as develop the skin surfaces. |  |
| Another overall view, but with a different angle to get some better light. Notice distortion. |  |
| With 3 whites: Bright white with orange, medium bright white with blue, and medium white with blue I dry brushed in the entire shirt and didn't paint on the darkest of the shadow areas. Like the face this took some time as I wanted to get the structures correct. I worked the paint in several methods. Method one involved just brushing the middle white over everything in different amounts. The second method was painting the shadows over the lighter areas (see red arrows - left one is after, right one is before). At the end I blended it all again with my filbert. I used some color on the right edges of the shirt, but this will get more layers once dry to refine the shadow areas, and color from the sun. |  |
| Added some browns and greys (blue side) to the shirt to give it some slight variations. I blended them after this picture. |  |
See red arrow for a challenge. I have this wierd form and I'm not sure on the solution yet. This is a shameless cliffhanger in an attempt to get you to stop back :)
The 2nd layer on the shirt is essentially done which puts me completely into phase 3 of the painting which will bring out the hues and color saturations. Phase 4 is the light phase followed by 5 which is detail and surface layer which will wrap the painting up. |  |
| Color and face. This is proving to be the most time intensive. Carefully I studied the structures and decided on a color scheme. With the low sun setting and atmospheric light from the other side I came up with a 4 warm color and 2 cool color palette. I didn't limit myself to these colors as mixed, but used them to be able to quickly mix combinations of them on brush. Not only did I have the 6 mixed colors, but also had black, 4 tube browns, 2 blues, 1 violet, 1 red (cadmium med), 1 orange (cad), and naples yellow. I want the light to be on the orange side so I used the orange instead of another red like rose or alizarin. Picturing a sphere in my head hanging out in the open I decided to paint surfaces facing the right with warm colors and on the left with the cool colors (which are combinations of warm and cools). During painting I used quite a bit of the orange and darker of the cool colors. I also used quite a bit of cad red and raw umber for the deepest tones. |  |
| My first concern is correcting structures and getting the face to look like JH. This is where I am at with this picture. I'm satisfied with the eyes, and facial features. This took about 10 hours to do and shows little progress. If this were a good digital it would show the warm and cool colors going in as well. I'm not concerned with highlights at this point, but tints are adjusted. I'll be treating highlights as anything that is directly reflecting the sun. |  |
| 8 Hours later I'm getting close to being done with the face. The hues are how I want them and its starting to round out. I want to add some complexity to the shadows still, but I'll wait for this to dry. All paint was applied with as much color as possible while using the dark underpainting. The paint is as thin as possible and I never touched the canvas with a towel or finger to prevent smoothing of the canvas which will add unwanted variation to the viewers experience. One large problem when getting to this point is chalking of paint. Despite the quality of any paint certain colors tend to chalk a bit and actually appear to be brighter than they actually are. Use your instinct here and go by what you mix. I've added some violets and blues to the cool color palette also. You'll notice there are slight structural errors that popped up and these will get corrected once the paint is dry; I want to be very careful not to mix over or mud paint thats on now as this layer will provide the meat of the painting. The next layer on the face is the highlight layer and will only take a couple minutes. It'll be hints of light on the nose, lips, and eyes. Reflected light on the forehead, cheek, and general right side of face. |  |
Personal experience blurb
As most know I'll be leaving the states soon to continue my life with my fiance in Poland. I'm basing this painting directly on my experiences as an american (34 years) while trying to tell a story of heart overtaking any obstacle. John Henry represents strength, family, and mastery over machine and changing of times, among other things. My drive is not only to portray JH, but to inspire others and overcome challenge. When the painting is done I'll write up something better and thought out. | |
| Second closeup of face. This is very close to being done. Highlights are mostly in and the background has been cleaned up. Colors on face are done and small structural corrections will get done to the ear and nose/lips. The next layer will be the detail surface layer. This will reveal things like scars, hair bits/directions, wrinkles, and things to help bring the forms into reality. |  |
| Closeup of hand. The hands aren't as complex as the face and will end up having lesser degree of accuracy, but good contrast. I put in some highlight and surface here. This hand is very close to being done. |  |
| An overview after working on it the entire weekend. Notice I moved around the timbers on the left quite a bit. The timber area under the top are basically all black. Quite to my surprise I figured out a new technique which we'll see later in paintings. It'll help with layering of organic land forms. I spend some time on the shoes, ground, and hammer. The shirt is going to require some additional planning and I've run into an obstacle which I'll work through over this coming week and have a solution for the weekend. This coming week (aug 13-18) I'm going to be working on some smaller paintings. |  |
If you have any questions please ask via email or you can call me on skype. I hope that some of this info is useful and I'll add more demos in the future. |
