This morning, the only thing I could see that needed some more work was her right hand, as it was fading into the background. I added a thin outline with colored pencils, and used white oil pastel to bring up the highlights on the fingers. With that done, I feel the whole piece is ready, so I had it scanned (luckily no problems with it being curled), and it is now available here in the store.
Medusa Triumphant
There was a heatwave going through the area today, and seems my AC might be having troubles (again). This made work more difficult, as the water would evaporate faster when I tried to paint, and the oil pastels were softer (Not always bad, but can be troublesome when you expect a technique to work one way and it does something different).
Nonetheless, I believe I have finished this piece. I had to work in short spurts when it came to the pastels, so they wouldn’t get overworked and become a gooey mess. I don’t apply too thick a coat of the pastels, luckily, but even thin layers will start to slide around when blending in this heat. The paint was just frustrating, trying to get an opaque mix, yet keep enough water in it so it wouldn’t dry on the palette before loading the brush again. Hopefully I’ll get the AC fixed soon.
I think this is the most any of my paper has ever curled, so it’ll be interesting to see how the scanning will go tomorrow. Until then, here’s a photo…
I was a bit surprised last night to see the masking hold smoothly to the rough paper. I could manage without masking, but it does make edges nicer, and allows me to rough in the oil pastels more quickly. So, today I was able to do just that, block in all the skin areas with colored pencils and oil pastels to blend. This paper may not have needed any textured gesso for the pastels to hold, but I didn’t want to chance it, plus I feel the gesso gives it an even base to work from. The pastels went on nicely, and I was able to cover everything by this evening. With the extra time, I began detailing, starting with her face, and got to a bit of her right hand as well. Her lips need a little repainting, but I think the oil pastel and colored pencils are complete. The rest of the skin should go quickly, then I can get back to the painted elements, most notably her snakes…
This paper is working quite well for this particular image. Last night I applied a wash of blue-gray gouache to the upper sky sections, allowing the brush to go beyond the lines of the stone architecture. I continued the sky down to the horizon with just gray wash. Next, I used a darker gray with a touch of green to wash in the farthest hills, followed by more green for the next hills. The closest hill was a wash of gray, brown, and green, with some darker green scrubbed in for some detail.
With the far background done, I mixed a large amount of yellow ochre, gray, and brown for the ground and stone work. I washed this mix, with it mostly ochre, over the sky to form the distant pillar and top piece. I continued it through to the ground and covered it all the way to the bottom of the paper. I added some brown and orange to the mix and loosely added strokes to form hints of blocks and stone texture. I used this mix also for the next pillar on the far right. I continued to build up darker layers, filling in the remaining pillars, and creating more texture (the paper’s natural texture helped a great deal here). Once I got to a dark brown, I considered the background completed…
(note – this paper curls quite a bit from all the water I’ve applied, so you’ll see a dark area in two of the corners.)
Later today I worked on the foreground paintwork, starting with Medusa’s wings, working heavy washes of dark brown gouache. I also used this mix for Perseus’ hair. Next, I filled in the facial features on both heads, then blocked in the snakes with a mix of brown and green gouache. I used a mix of gray and ochre for the sword’s hilt, then just gray for the blade, as well as her bracers. Finally, I used a brown and red mix for the blood pool and drops. None of this is complete yet, but I don’t want to work the details until I see how this paper reacts to the masking (this piece is a rarity for me, as I didn’t use any airbrushing, and also didn’t mask anything up to this point). Once the oil pastels are at least blocked in, I can remove the masking and finish the details then.
I took this photo right before applying the masking and painting in the textured gesso for the skin areas…
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Naked Art
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Work progress of artist Kevin Clark
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