Sunday, January 03, 2010

Hell Is Having Nothing To Do But Wait For The Conclusion Of An Inevitable Journey

The underpainting to "Hell Is.." etc. is complete! I've added lots of detail here and it's so smooth and detailed, as well as chromatically accurate that little glazing if any is needed. Lots of textures are involved as the archers polymorph to escape their fate; there is metal, water, wood, rock, flesh, shadow, and some verdiforms and oviforms too! The amount of detail here is very high so I've included a few close ups. I'm pleased with this one, partly because the textures were improvised, including the mountains which are showing improvement with each painting. It shows that a model isn't always needed for a degree of realism.

The colours used were cobalt turquoise light, naples yellow deep, a tiny bit of light red, black and white.

I've also dug out the portrait of Andrew Williams but I still dislike it. I have half a mind to destroy it and start again.

What I did right with this painting is visualisation before painting. Carefully imagining the picture allowed me to see problem areas and calculate the textures I'd like to use before starting. One result of that was adding drop shadows to some of the arrows, something I did the night before starting work, and on the whole it improved the picture.