Surface and Transferring

Now it's time to at least start on my final painting by transferring my comprehensive charcoal drawing onto the surface.  Before I do that though, I have to prime the wood.

I only use gesso for a first coat, to seal the wood.  After that, I use Golden’s acrylic ground for pastels, a gritty medium that suits my paintings well.  I create a multilayered, stone-like feel to the surface with multiple trowelled-on and sanded coats.

The texture is subtle and transparent, but I can get a lot of mileage out of it as the painting goes on.  By shining a flashlight across it you can see the texture more clearly.

After the surface texture is where I want it, I transfer the charcoal drawing to the final surface.  I draw light dividing lines on the drawing to split it up into sections.  Notice the nick marks at the edges dividing it up into quarters lengthwise, and in half top to bottom. The drawing is the same ratio as the final surface, so I do some simple math to help me get things where they're supposed to go.

Comprehensive drawing

Transferred drawing

At this point, I vary a little in my approach, but with this painting I decided to do an underpainting with an oil wash.  I fixed the drawing with damar retouch varnish, and painted the values in with thinned down burnt umber and transparent oxide yellow.

Notice there is nothing in the tomb – yet. I was anxious to get the paint down, and as I expected, that process got my brain going about what exactly to put in the chambers.

So now you have an idea how I get things from concept to painting.  Of course, this doesn’t cover all the processes and tools.  I’ll talk about others as we explore more about TOMBS.

Tomb #1: The Space

So I have my idea.  I have my money and my materials.  What now?

The first thing to do is figure out who my characters are, who the tombs are about.  I’ll talk more about creating characters later; for now I’d like to jump right into the first Tomb.

That’s the attitude I had when I began.  While I was still figuring out the content of the tombs, I was hankering to get going on the final piece.  A lot of experienced artists would say that this is a mistake, but I can get ideas flowing when I’m actually producing, not just staring at a sketchbook all day.

So I had to figure out what the tomb itself looked like – how objects would be interacting with the space.  I had a long, odd size to work with (80” x 30”) so I had to really figure out the arrangement of the space itself.

An uncut door

Here are some sketches of ideas, with a disclaimer: I am not an accomplished sketcher.  Most of my artist friends have stacks of sketchbooks filled with beautiful images.  Mine are paltry doodles that act more as a placeholders for my original idea.

One of the books that I will be consistently referencing is James Gurney’s Imaginative Realism. It’s a step by step approach on how to convincingly paint something that might not exist in reality.  (Check out his blog. It’s useful for artists and illustrators, but he also frequently posts about the intersection of art, history and science.)

One thing Gurney talks about is the creation and use of maquettes – small models to use for reference.  Getting the right reference is important – A final painting will always look more convincing when you use actual reference, rather than from just what you think you see in your mind’s eye.

I started off by making a simple maquette of the tomb and other rocks using stryofoam and acrylic paint.  I made sure that the dimensions were the same ratio as what the final painting would be.

Then I did a photo shoot, taking as many pictures as I could, in as many arrangements as possible.  I even cut out a portion of the tomb to stick a light into in some of the photos.

This was not leading me where I wanted to go.  I decided to scrap the styrofoam tomb altogether and start again (although I may use it in the future). It’s a good rule to live by – but sometimes a difficult one – that if at any step of the way, something is not working out the way you want, don’t settle with it. Make it right.  This integrity will show in the end result. I know from experience.

I decided that a multi-chambered space would work best.  As inspiration, I borrowed a picture my sister-in-law took on a recent European trip.  

It’s a section of the Tomb of the Kings on Cyprus.  This 4 chambered tomb was what I was looking for, so I started sketching possible arrangements:

I then went out and bought several pounds of modeling clay. Frustrated with the styrofoam earlier, I figured the clay could give me more control.  I roughed out the chambers I was thinking and did another photo shoot. 

Note the clay stuff inside one of the chambers.  This was just to give me an idea about how light would affect the subject matter.

This shoot was more successful. I ended up compositing several photos together to get exactly what I was looking for with each chamber, while keeping consistent with overall lighting.

Composite photo

A last step in this conceptual process is to complete a larger charcoal drawing using my sources, called a comprehensive drawing.  I don't copy it exactly; I use the lighting in my photos, as well as other references (more on found references in a later post), to draw a tomb made of stone.  Again, the stuff inside is just a place holder.

Comprehensive drawing

This is just one approach out of hundreds to flesh out an idea.  In my next post, I'll talk about transferring the chambers to the final surface.

Why Tombs?

Object + time – facts = Fascination (mystery + curiosity)

There is something about old things.  Old things that show their age.  Old things that once had life.  Old things that have a story – but not the whole story, or even the correct one. It’s the mystery of archeology that is so compelling; it presents a frosty window into a time and world not our own.

What is the object above? A naturally occurring geologic growth? A horn of an unknown animal? A manmade sculpture? It's these kind of possibilities, not necessarily the facts given, that I try to convey in  my own work.

My masters thesis project, Monument, operated this way.  I had the idea of the story behind the Stonehenge-like installation, but I didn't talk about it much and let the audience try to piece together the implied story.

This man was the central figure in the stone circle.  One could then assume that the rest of the images – collections of sometimes disparate objects – had to do with him in some way.

But what did they mean? The behind-the-scenes answer was that the main character was some sort of soldier or assassin, and the objects were somehow representative of vanquished foes.  But some were more obvious than others:

For example, how would a stained rag and a fried locust represent an enemy? Sometimes, even I didn't have all the answers, but the mystery created a dialogue with the viewer.

For TOMBS, I intend to use these very tools to engage the audience.  Each tomb will be about a particular person, and piecing together the material clues will be part of the fun.

And in keeping with the mystery, here's a sneak-peek at a detail of one of the tombs in progress:

Introduction

Earlier this year, I was awarded a material needs grant from ArtsWorcester to complete new work. In the call for proposals, this question was posed to the applicants:

“What work would you create if you didn’t have to worry about the cost of supplies?” 

Not my studio, thankfully

Creativity is an enigmatic and sometimes frustrating thing. The cost of oil paint was not stopping me from doing the kind of work I really want to do. But that question removed a mental barrier and opened up possibilities I hadn’t considered. 

 I immediately then started formulating the idea for what would become TOMBS. Here is an excerpt of the project from my proposal:

"TOMBS is an exploration of archeology, storytelling and mystery. There will be 4 oil paintings that explore the burial of a particular person. 

"Each tomb, like an archeological find, will give clues about the person’s life, yet it will retain mystery about specifics. It will allow for the audience to assume the roll of archeologist and discover who the person may have been."

"Oh, rats..."

When I was working on my Master’s thesis in grad school, I blogged my progress.  I found this exercise helpful on many levels; I was able to look at my own work objectively, and it also helped me zero in on what exactly I was shooting for.  

"Monument," my Master's thesis project completed in 2009 

Since TOMBS is my biggest undertaking since then, I decided to start another blog.

I’ll be documenting my progress and talking about approach, materials, resources, inspiration, and anything else that pertains to the making of TOMBS.  

I know I’ll get a lot out of the process, but I’m hoping that others will find it at least a little illuminating.