It's been a few days. I've been tied up with a commercial job, but had some time over the weekend to work on one of the initial version's problems with depicting foliage...

Here's one way I'm going to handle it in the second version...

I'm liking the Old Holland medium better and better...

More work on the lower left corner characters' test.




Also more work on the medium. I'm not happy with it. Gets tacky too quickly. I think it is the damar. At any rate, back to the Old Holland medium. I keep coming back to it.

A new test painting with a new medium... For the first version of this area - second version of the painting - I tried increasing the size of the characters by 50%. (see the April 9th entry.) After working the original composition in various ways to accommodate larger characters, it became clear that it just simply was not going to work. The composition would become way too compromised.... so, back to original sizing for the characters... perhaps just a tad larger. This is a new test painting underway...




The Medium: Made a big mixing mistake that seems to have worked out quite well. I purchased some Canada Balsam from Studio Products. it's like a very thick stand oil. I meant to mix a medium with it using 9 parts Damar, 2 parts Canada Balsam and 1 part turpentine. I somehow screwed up my measurements and mixed the formula with 6 parts of Canada Balsam rather then 2... Well... might as well try it out, right... and quite amazingly, I really liked it... :)

The new acending transvestite...

The new acending drinker...

Below is a test detail from the revised drawing for the painting. The first frame shows the 19" x 13" ink jet print glued to a masonite panel using "Yes" glue, and with 5 coats of acrylic matte finish. The second frame shows the panel with a coat of thinned titanium white oil paint to knock back the intensity of the lines and add a small brush stroke texture to the surface. The third frame show the test with oil paint underway.

A digital coloring of part of the in the last post. This is the style I'm going to recreate in oil on the new panel.

I'm definitely going to redo the painting... Start from scratch using the same basic composition, but with a complete redraw of all the characters and probably most of the background...

Here are some of the new characters in the lower left quadrant




A detail:

I've been thinking a lot about the drawing style in my last post and have pretty much concluded it works well for drawing, but not well as a sketch model for painting... so back to the drawing board and I've come up with a better style to go with. Below is the original priest and below that a new version in the new style. I think the new version will lend itself well to being a sketch model for painting....

If it still feels good after awhile, I'm going to redraw all the characters, plus some new ones, and start over.

The original:


The new version:

I stopped by the Penna. Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia to see the Daniel Garber exhibition in the main gallery on the second floor. As I was leaving, I got sidetracked by the first floor small one room gallery. There was an exhibition of Laylah Ali's drawings. I had not heard of her. I was stunned...

Viewing her ink drawings brought me back to an earlier time in my life when I was drawing similarly. But at that time I was simply to young to be able understand it or deal with it properly.

In a way that may be hard to fathom, Ali's drawings remind me of one of my art gods, Francis Bacon. Her pictures strike me the same way with the same quiet gut power.

So... I'm now wrestling with how I might transform my painting style or rediscover and continue with a style that led me into a brick wall so many years ago. I am going to shelve the current version of the "The Irreverant Rapture," - and start anew... same theme, new style, better understanding of oil paint...

Here are some characters that may show up in the new composition...




A detail:

There is a pile of bodies on the left next to the church wall. The pile is being investigated by some creatures... doing who knows what... I think it intensifies that little story by putting a tarp over the pile of bodies...

I took a photo of the roughed in area of the painting and then used Photoshop to sketch how the tarp will look...

Gotta start finishing up that rock wall...

OK... the new guy is in place, just starting to ascend... ready to be painted...

A drawing for the replacement guy, center right...

I think I'm going to change that little guy in the center with his arms outspread... Have some ideas for him...

So what does a grapefruit and an orange have to do with the "Irreverant Rapture?" Just testing some glazing mediums...

Been away from it for a couple days... Got back on it today. Still working on the block'a rocks...

A detail on the subterrainean rock block... It's not done yet. Still have some over glazing to do. Also plan on adding the color for the internal furnace/fire between the blocks of rock.

Moving ahead with the subterranean rock block... It appears darker in this image than it will be in the final version....

A study of the subterranean rock block that has pushed to the surface.




A drawing detail...

Doing some rock studies before tackling the big subterranean rock that has pushed up to the surface, destroying part of a building.