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.