Monday, May 10, 2010

Ladies

Day two of glazing and I've painted the statues.

It's difficult to paint nine identically lit objects and get the same colours and levels of detail, so I did it by glazing each one in a thin "base", a simple gradient of light to dark essentially, rubbed very thinly and roughly, going over edges and not caring that much. That layer is like what some painters call a "couch" of medium, but this time with pigment. I often paint objects in that way, but this time I did it for all nine before moving to stage two.

When the colours and tones were balanced I went back and refined the modelling and added the detail. It's always a task to get the first object you paint looking as detailed and neat as the last because you tend to learn and adjust as you work. This method helps with that. I should finish tomorrow.