First of all, because it’s the biggest thing in my life right now, and because my life and my art really aren’t easy to separate, I have to say that Wabi, my sweet, curly, snake-neck, goat-head monkey-girl, my little greyhound chimera is gone. I could (and will, but not here) write volumes about that little girl-dog. Suffice it to say that my heart is broken, but that her lesson is to live life, and enjoy it despite obstacles. Wherever you see a dandelion (a favorite obsession of hers), I hope you see a bit of sun, a treat, and that it makes you smile.
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Now, moving on.
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Fluffy Acrylic on gessoed panel. 8″ x 10″ ©Xan Blackburn 2011 |
Fluffy is finally done! Assuming I stop messing with it, this is the final look. Okay, actually I fiddled with it a bit more after this scan, but you might not be able to tell the difference if I re-scanned it!
It may not look too different from the last time I showed it to you, but I assure you, there are hours more fiddling in it since then!
One thing you might be able to see,
if you go back and forth, is that I took the cooler blueish tones way over into a burnt umber zone. It was bothering me earlier that he was starting to look sort of grubby. I had to step back, sort of wash my eyes out a bit, and come back to the photos with freshened perceptions to see that the tone of his fur is truly much warmer than I had made it, and that’s what I’d been fighting with, resulting in a confused, dirty sort of look. I was able to resolve that by giving in to the warm tones, even though I was afraid he’d just blend into his warm background. The cooler shadows underneath helped prevent that, however. So, here comes Fluffy!
Kris, his owner, is ill right now. I hope this little painting of her adorable pup can give her some pleasure, and that she’ll be well soon.
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And moving on further, I’ve begun real work on the 4 breed demonstration portraits I mentioned
earlier. I’m going to keep these to a similar look so they work well together on a shared board-frame-thing my husband and I have cooked up to display them at shows. They are on gessoed panel (actually Claybord, which is not gessoed, but coated with a very fine white clay), on which I’ve laid down a muted warm background on, mixing Naples yellow, burnt umber, ultramarine blue and gesso (so much for the clay surface!) This gives me a matte, slightly toothy surface which I’ve been enjoying in my last few pieces.
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Daddy Work in progress. Acrylic on Claybord. 8″ x 10″ ©Xan Blackburn 2011 |
First up is Daddy, a Birger Picard. I’d love to meet one of these dogs! They look like a neat breed, and I love the rough, fuzzy face! Here’s where I am as of right now.
The drawing has been transferred onto the prepared panel, and I’ve begun to lay in the underpainting in a mix of raw umber and Prussian blue hue. You can see I’ve also already washed in a little pink to the tongue and ear. I had mostly wanted to get the eye going, which meant layering up red and golden yellow, and red goes a loo-ooong way, I’m super cheap and hate to waste paint, so I wanted to use up the tiny bit I squeezed out.
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Daddy, reference photo |
My reference photo is not very good, sadly, but I’ve been able to cross-reference with some others to give me a sense of the actual texture of the fur. I’m going to TRY to get all four of these done in time to scan the finished paintings, design some postcards and/or business cards, get them printed, and still take them all to California in a week and a half! Wish me luck. I’ve got to get a wiggle on!
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