Chrysos - Acrylic Process

I enjoy using scrap matboard as a painting surface. In addition to using up 'scrap' materials that would otherwise be thrown away, the variety of color and texture makes it an excellent acid-free canvas.

This is an acrylic painting on a 5X7 sheet of green matboard.  The colors used were:

Titanium White
Mars Black
Burnt Sienna
Raw Umber
Colbalt Blue
Naples Yellow
Cadmium Yellow (just a tiny bit for the eyes)

Blocking in basic values

 I did scan the sketch, but since the matboard is so dark, my pencil lines didn't show up in the scan.  So this is the earliest scan in the process - basic, grayed values.  Here, I add a little raw umber to my gray mixture.


More value, blocking in rough details

I'm still not getting too detailed - here I'm still using a rather large brush to block in rough details, such as the feather patterns.  I eventually switch to a round for the thinner feather edges. I'm still only using black, white and raw umber.

Painting details, finalizing value

 As I push my values, I start to add subtle colors to the grays, such as a little burnt sienna to where the golden nape feathers are. My values are at about 85% here, since I know when I add my color glazes, I'll lose a little bit of my value and have to go back and touch up my highlights.

Glazes, final painting

From grayed browns, to a full-color eagle!  By glazing a little burnt sienna with naples yellow over the nape, I give the golden eagle its 'golden' title. This eagle is inspired by Chrysos, the golden eagle at Horizon Wings, so named because of her scientific name - Aquila chrysaetos - which literally translates to "golden eagle"  I use raw umber mixed with a tiny bit of colbalt blue in areas where I want a duller brown, and to push the value away from the bright orange-gold of the neck and back of the head.  To make your golds really pop, you need to surround them with duller colors. A completely-golden golden eagle will look a bit boring, just as the surrounding green and white feathers of a ruby-throated hummingbird are what make that vibrant gorget so stunning.

Smaug - Sketches and Studies

Lately I have been working on larger canvases and in acrylic - quite a change from my preference of painting small and with watercolor.  After returning from IlluxCon in September, I have decided to try and focus on the basics - better composition, greater value, and a better handle on color.  I also decided to strengthen my portfolio with non-avians, since I love to paint fantasy creatures of all types, but you wouldn't know it from my bird-centric portfolio!

I came across the Harper Collins Smaug Art Competition a month ago and decided it would be a good exercise to add a dragon to my portfolio.  Though I read The Hobbit back in middle school, I wanted the vision of Smaug to be fresh in my mind, so I re-read it before beginning my sketches.

Thumbnail Sketch:

To me, Smaug was his most terrifying when laying on his treasure, just rising to speak with the 'thief' he couldn't see.  Not only massive and powerful, but cunning as well - even the strongest and most clever could fall prey to his 'dragon-spell' if he spoke to them for too long.  I wanted to show him just rising, peering in the direction where he knew Bilbo to be hiding, but even his sharp eyes could not spot the invisible hobbit.

Second Sketch:

There were a few things in the thumbnail sketch I wanted to change, such as the size and placement of Smaug's head, and the position of his forelegs. I scanned the thumbnail sketch in and repositioned and resized things in Photoshop, then printed it out and refined the sketch with pen.  Here I began adding the details, such as a 'crown' of spines and horns.

Transfer:

 Since I will be painting this on a piece of gessoed Masonite, I transfered the final sketch onto the 11X14 primed board with red transfer paper, since the dragon will be mostly red and gold.

Value Study:

 In Photoshop, I painted a grayscale value study over the final sketch to figure out where my shadows and highlights would be.  I wanted the main light source to be the reflective gold he is laying on.  In the book, it seemed to me that there was very little light in the great hall where the gold was, save for from the gold itself.  Obviously gold does not emit its own light, but does reflect light very nicely.  Here, for the sake of the illustration, I made the gold glow more than it would, and made it the main source of light.  There is also a bit of light coming from Smaug's fiery throat, and from his glowing eyes.

Akhraiiu - Gryphon Portrait Process

I'm trying to work more in acrylic, so for the upcoming Dragon Con Art Show, I planned on having a number of acrylic pieces.  Below are three process shots of an 8X10 inch acrylic on board painting of a gryphon portrait.

Underpainting:

Basic values in gray, with a greenish gray background.  At this point I am to find the light and shadow.

Basic Details:

Details, still in grays.  I start to tighten the detail on the feathers and face.

Color:

 

Here I start putting in glazes of color, going thicker where I want more vibrant color.  Since I already have my shadows established, I can simply concentrate on color.  I also deepen the shadows that went dull with the glazes with more color, for example adding a bit of green and black with the burnt sienna to make a deep, rich shadow for the feathers.  I'm only using a few colors at this point - burnt sienna and green gold for the feathers, with black and white. 

Final Details:

I add a bit of green and raw umber to the background to really make the reds of the gryphon pop.  To make the palette even more interesting, I add just a touch of permanent rose and dioxazine purple to the rearmost feathers.  All in all the colors I used were:

Burnt Sienna

Hooker's Green

Green Gold

Burnt Ochre

Permanent Rose

Dioxazine Purple

Raw Umber

Mars Black

Titanium White

Unbleached Titanium (for some areas where I wanted a less stark white)

Phthalocyanine Green (for the jewel details)

Colbalt Blue (just a touch for the cool gray of the beak)

Signal - Sketches

With summer conventions coming up, I'm always inspired by the huge paintings I see in the art shows.  It reminds me that I want to work bigger, instead of squishing all the detail into an 8X10 or 9X12 painting!  I've wanted to paint another large (11X14 for me is large!) acrylic painting for a while, featuring gryphons, so after doing some sketches, I came up with the idea of a gryphon holding a flag as a signal for other gryphons to fly into battle.

Final Sketch:

I am trying to pay closer attention to composition lately.  As I learned long ago, the eye automatically tends to travel from top left to bottom right, so you want to catch the viewer's eye and move it around the composition while breaking that straight 'dive' to the bottom right.  I aimed to create movement from the gryphon in the foreground, to the middleground gryphon, all the way to the group in the background.

For colors, I didn't want to go with the same plain blue sky.  I looked through some photos I took of sunset skies and found some inspiration in the yellows, oranges and deep purples there.  It also gives a yellow glow for the highlights, with cooler blues for the shadows.

Color Sketch:

I may add another brown/red gryphon down below just above the trees so there isn't a large expanse of 'dead' space.  It will also allow me to bring some of the red of the flag and jewels to more of the composition. 

Swamp Milkweed Nectarbird

As shown in my previous post, I went with a variation of the grisaille technique for my most recent painting. Here is the completed painting, acrylic on cold-press illustration board, 8 X 10 inches:



To start where I left off with the process, I experimented with color in Photoshop to see exactly how things would look before I started putting the glazes over the gray painting.



What I suspected was that the tonal painting was too gray for the glaze technique to be successful, and I was right. The way I was taught to do this technique was to create a tonal painting with a grayed color, meaning not pure gray, but grayed green, for example. As I started putting down glazes, I saw that the gray showing through beneath was not what I wanted for certain sections of the painting, particularly those with higher saturation. Therefore, I had to add a bit more opacity to what were supposed to be glazes.



Although I had to deviate from my original plan with technique, I do not consider this to be a failure of a project. On the contrary, I learned quite a bit on what to do (and what not to do), and ended up with, what I feel, is a good painting. For future paintings using this technique, I will make sure my tonal painting is not so gray. I also found, once I started putting glazes down, that the overall contrast was too dark. I ended up lightening a lot of the composition during the color phase, when it should have been light enough at the tonal stage. All in all, a good learning experience!