Hooray!  I’m remembering to post my work in progress!  I often forget until I’m about through with a stage and then realize that it might be interesting or helpful to see the work in various stages of completion.  Here is a few hours plugging away at blocking in.  This one proves to be a challenge with all the different patterning and textures in the feathers.  My colleague, Johannah O’Donnell, mentioned to me that birds are like that before I started.  I made sure to tell her that she was right on the money with that comment and promised to let her in on any secrets that make the work go faster.  We’ll see if I come up with anything.  Might not do her any good anyway as our processes are pretty different.  In any case, here is the owl in progress.  I managed to find a nice bar maid image to use as reference.  Hopefully it will turn out.  At this stage I’m always a little unsure.

So maybe you can tell I did one of the things I swore I would never do… make a New Year resolution.  So I’m going to be pushing hard to be better at posting to my blog with new art this year.

Here is a small pig for my animal collection, only about 9″ x 6″, at the charcoal value stage.  I tried something a little different on this one, pushing in with white colored pencil in a few places before spray fixing.  Probably won’t do that again as the charcoal darkens a lot with the spray fix and the white colored pencil remains stark so there ends up being a gap between the lightest of the charcoal values and the white.  No biggie.  I could push after the spray fix dries to build back in that light range.  I think I’ll just save the colored pencil until after the spray fix in the future.

I don’t have a backstory in mind for this fellow yet but I’m sure he will work into the novella at some point.  For a name I’m considering Piercival Pigglesbottom.  With a name like that how could something not occur to me?

On reviewing my work goals at the end of last year, it turns out I set myself to complete my animal series by August.  Yikes!  It is do-able though I still do have a good number of animals to complete.  I decided to do another one a little larger so this proper nightingale is going to be 11″ x 14″.  As in keeping with my technique, I’m working charcoal on gessoed canvas, sealing it with spray fixative and then coming back in with white colored pencil to push a few places a little lighter and add in a bit more detail.  Since I’m in the groove, I’m considering completing the final animal digital mock-ups and charcoals all at once and then trying to get them painted at the same time.  We’ll see how that goes.  Hopefully it will speed up the work flow a bit and I can still have some time to write.

It really feels good to be back to painting.  There was a time in the middle of this where I had pushed this guy to about 80% and was slogging my way through the background environment wondering why in the heck I decided to do bricks that I was having to really push.  Once the background came together and I got to push the color saturation on him, I was really back to enjoying it.  This one proved to be challenging with all the little details of the patterning on the jacket and the lace work on the cravat and, of course the brick but I liked pushing those little details that I hadn’t pushed in my other animals.  Anyway, I look forward to adding him to my wall of animals and who knows, sometime soon maybe I’ll finish the series and have a show and maybe get that alphabet book done.

I finished the charcoal stage on my latest animal painting.  I’ve started completing this stage in a few steps now as well.  I am now getting about 90-95 percent complete with my first stage charcoals, spray-fixing heavily, and then coming back in with white colored pencil to push my whites and details further.  I might also start incorporating black colored pencils here in the future as well just to give myself a little more precision in places.  I’m a little concerned with the block patterning in the background and will probably end up pushing that back with value and cool colors, just to pop Mr Corgi out a bit.  Now, on to color studies!

I’m starting work on my animal series again and hoping that I can get the bulk of it finished in a few more months.  Not sure if I am still intending to do an ABC animal book or not but we’ll have to see how things play out.  I’m working on a Corgi right now, still pretty small scale at 5″ x 7″, and just plugging away on the charcoals.  You can see a little of my process here where I’ve gridded off my toned canvas and am working up from my digital comp.  As I go I make small alterations to lighting and details to try to unify all the various elements and direct the viewer eye as best as I can.  For purposes of the novella to go along with the work I’m also trying to incorporate more backgrounds now, applying the advice I give to my students that a good environment is key in establishing a place in space and time and can affect the appearance of the subject quite a bit.  I’ll try to keep posting the work as I go.