Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Tracker last layer oils


Its time for tracker to be put to rest. I will wait for a couple of days for the oils to dry and put a retouch varnish on it to bring all the colors up and to have a uniform glossiness.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Tracker third layer oil


Tracker's face is done and the cape as well. Now to work on his jacket and the ferns. I will need to get my son to wrap up his hand to model for the bandaged hand as imagining it just isnt working.

This time I didn't try to correct the photo glare and the color is more accurate here.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Tracker second layer oils


The background trees are done. (and they're not blue). Blackberry vines are done as well as the big tree. Now, what to do with the orb?

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Tracker first layer oil


Here is the first layer of oil paint. I'm using Galkyd medium by Gamblin. It makes the oils dry in less than a day when it's used it to thin the paints. I'm excited about the oils too, because I'm using the professional grade oils that I bought for the illustration masterclass. The colors are vibrant to the max! My focus with this layer is to firm up the values (the light and dark contrasts). Once again the art isn't showing correctly with the photo. The left side is in reality dark green not grey, the back trees are dark bluish green, not blue and the orb is white, not blue. The large tree and foreground are fairly accurate, so I'll call this photo of the art good for now.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Tracker Illustration first layer


I tried a different medium this time. On watercolor illustration board I started with a glossy acrylic medium coating over the drawing. I let it dry and lightly sanded it with super fine sandpaper. Then I used Holbein acryla-gouache for the first layer of undercoating. It acted better than acrylics: no blotches of clumpy pigment and no ridges of thick paint to worry about. Since I used the glossy medium underneath, I am able to wipe out most of the pigment when I want to. So, it is giving me the flexibility of watercolors, but more of the permanence of acrylics. I will let it dry for a day and try oils on top for the finished layers. I like the balance of colors and composition so far, but these are still very light colors compared to how I want it to finish up.