As an artist/filmmaker I will post videos/films, photos and thoughts about the paintings I am currently working on as well as share some of my techniques. Through the videos, photos and comments I invite you into my studio to see the world that I have spent most of my life painting. I have painted and drawn the human form, face and figure, still lifes and landscapes for 40 years. I hope to share some of my experience here. Let's see where this takes us.
On this second post I'm focusing on this painting you see here of these dancers rehearsing. So I've created a short video/film about this painting (you can watch the video on this page) and I share a bit about using a palette knife to paint this. Typically I would have my wife, Nilla, edit most of the things I write since she is a writer/author and writing is one of my greatest weaknesses. But for my blog I've decided to do this unedited "uncensored" so you will get the real me. So from here on out please keep that in mind. Currently I'm feeling torn between painting, filming/editing, and music and many days find that I constantly am jumping back and forth from one to the other. And more often than not these days I'm combining all three. And in between all of this I feel a bit crazy trying to create and keep up with putting out a blog that I think people might actually be interested in seeing. But when I consider that people seem to really enjoy my life drawing classes and workshops and they keep filling up with students, I suppose I do have something to share. So this is how we will proceed from here. I'll assume that I will be posting paintings, video/films and comments that some viewers will enjoy and hopefully learn from. And now that I've got that out of the way we won't have to deal with that from this point on.
Here is a close-up of my painting "Preparing for Spring Dance". This will give you an idea for what my paintings often look like in detail. This painting is oil on linen16x20. On this type of painting, where I use mostly palette knife, I build up countless layers of paint but tried to allow parts of every layer to show through. So with the palette knife I use the canvas as my palette really more than my actual palette. Then I let my eye, and yours, blend the color as we look at it.
This painting (left) is the full image of the close-up only image I showed in the last post. I don't recall the size but I think it was around 22x14 perhaps. I didn't use palette knife for this but instead used fingers and a brush.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Since this is my very first post, I feel compelled to share this painting (close up) that I did in the mid '90s. This dancer was with the Atlanta Ballet at the time I painted her and I have painted her countless times. She still remains the one subject who I've painted more than anyone else, but it has been a number of years since the last painting of her. I share this specific painting because I feel that it expresses and conveys my painting style as well as any I've done. Perhaps I will show you the rest of the painting soon. This is oil on linen painted mostly with one brush (as I tend to do) and many fingers and both thumbs. This is the only way I know to arrive at this texture and atmosphere. I think that by painting with my fingers I have a much closer involvement with the canvas and and feel my way around the layers of paint, which is not possible with a brush alone. Thanks, Steve. stevechilds.com
