Rudy - a chook in oil

Here's Rudy, my daughter's cross-bred, feather footed bantam rooster, now immortalised in oils.

 Rudy.
25x35cm oil on board. 
 © Andy Dolphin
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We've had chooks since our "tree change" almost nine years ago but this is the first time I've painted one. I've taken lots of photos of them over the years but was never inspired enough to commit one to paint until now. Mind you, the Canon 1100D DSLR camera does make the task a little easier than my old point-and-shoot digicam did.

Here's the three main stages in the painting process...

I used a "wash-in then wipe-out" method to achieve the highlight areas in the stage one under-painting. I gave the whole board a random wash of burnt sienna thinned with mineral spirits and a lean medium. Then I washed in some darker ares with burnt sienna and ultramarine. I threw a little viridian in too, for variety and to contrast with the reds. With an abstract background in place, I added the major shadow areas for Rudy using the same colours, plus permanent crimson (a cool red). Then I dipped a cloth in turps and wiped out some of the main highlight areas.

This set the stage for the rest of the painting and gave me an opportunity to check proportions and positioning. You may be able to tell that Rudy grew a little taller and thinner after the stage one photo was taken.

Tim Minchin's eyes

Digital painting in Photoshop:

I was just looking through some old digital doodles and sketches and came across this  sketch of Tim Minchin's eyes. I'd been working on doing a caricature but never quite "got it". Sometimes I'll do a more-realistic sketch of major features, as I did with Emily Deschanel, to see if I can find the secret to capturing the character.

With Ms Deschanel I found the character. With Tim, however, the secret remained a secret. I'm not sure if it's because he is a real-life caricature to begin with.

I'll try again one day.

 (Minchin's Eyes - digital sketch. 900x647px . © 2010, Andy Dolphin)

Crusoe Jetty oil painting

Here's a little oil painting I did a couple of weeks ago.

( Crusoe Jetty. 35x25cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

Oil sketch - King River Bridge

The aim here was simple - do a quick, loose painting with strong light. There's a little over an hour in this one which was done in-studio from a photo I took a few weeks ago.

I used a three-colour palette (plus white) and all but the finest detail was completed with one flat synthetic brush.

( King River Bridge. 35x25cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)
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I've been reading

I've always loved educational books. I've never been a reader of novels but give me a text book on an interesting subject and I'm happy.

In the last few weeks I've had my head stuck in three books in particular. The first is titled Gruppé on Painting: direct techniques in oil, by Emile Gruppé. I ordered this one through my local library after finding it on LISWA, a searchable database of the Western Australian public library system.

The second is Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting by John F Carlson. LISWA didn't list this one so I ordered it through my local book shop.

The third is Painting Light in Oils by Peter Wileman. Although published just last year, I found this one on LISWA too - it's in brand-new condition!

Both Gruppé and Carlson are recommended by artists whose work I've come to respect. Carlson, in particular, is often referenced by contemporary landscape painters. Both these books are pretty old.

Gruppé was published over 30 years ago and is mostly in black and white print with two sets of colour plates of selected paintings. Printing has come a long way in thirty years and I'm certain these aged reproductions do the originals no justice at all. That said, the book is chock full of easy-to-read advice for the landscape and seascape painter. I read it from cover to cover in a matter of days (a record for me). If I didn't have to return it, I'd certainly refer back to it. The only drawback is that many of Gruppé's examples are based on old, busy fishing boat harbours that, whilst interesting, might seem a little irrelevant to some readers. I found myself wishing there were harbours like those somewhere near here. Our nearest fishing boat harbour is pristine and deserted by comparison.

I bought Carlson's Guide because I keep seeing and hearing references to it and, quite frankly, it's cheap. It cost me $16 at an actual shop but it's even cheaper if you're happy buying online. This book has no colour whatsoever, except for the cover. Reviews on Amazon suggest some people are disappointed by this but the book was first published in 1929 (I think that's just after paper was discovered, wasn't it?). It was revised in 1958 and although the current book was published in 1973, it's a copy of the '58 version.

I'm finding Carlson a little harder to read than Gruppé. It's by no means difficult but Carlson is a little more, err, "old fashioned". That said, this book is also full of advice and information, especially for the plein air painter. The sample paintings and discussions in the book may be a little more relevant to the landscape artist than Gruppé's largely harbour-centric advice.

The lack of colour in these books should help to press home the central message of both authors that tone, or value, and composition are the main game and that the artist should do what it takes to make these things work. Colour is just the icing on the cake, the roof on the house, the fluffy dice hanging from the rear vision mirror.

The third book is by Peter Wileman, current president of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. Exploiting advances in printing technology in recent years, there is absolutely no shortage of colour in this book - not only is there a colour plate on every page, but Wileman's paintings themselves are loaded with colour. The advice in this book is largely based on descriptions of how selected paintings were approached. It is not a Gruppé- or Carlson-style text book. I was interested to note that, like me, Wileman works on MDF panels primed with acrylic. However, while I use a proprietary acrylic gesso, Wileman gives a recipe for his primer that I was previously unfamiliar with. I'm going to give it a try myself soon. If it's good enough for the president of the ROI, it must be good enough for me. I'm adding this book to my shopping list because it is simply beautiful and I like owning attractive and informative books. Amazon lists it at under $20, which seems somewhat under-priced for a book of this quality, so I might have to dip my toe in the water and try Amazon for this one.

UPDATE:
You can preview the Carlson book  at Amazon.

Mt Barker painting workshop

Last weekend I hosted a painting workshop for members of Mitchell House in my home town. We had a great day and there was some terrific work done.

I had members choose just three colours - a "red", a "yellow" and a "blue" - plus white, from their own sets of oils or acrylics. Then everyone followed along as I painted a karri forest scene. The idea here was to shift the emphasis from colour to tone. Instead of everyone trying to get the exact same reds or browns or greens, they used their own limited palette to match the tones in my demonstration painting.

It's too easy to get bogged down in trying to match colours when tone is what sets the foundation of a work.

Here's my demo painting from the workshop.

I used French ultramarine, cadmium yellow deep and permanent crimson in my demonstration (I saw some wonderful results with burnt sienna as the "red" and yellow ochre as the "yellow"). My painting is on a Fredrix 10x14" (255x355mm) canvas board and was done almost entirely with just one large (approx 2cm wide) synthetic, chisel-edged brush. I used a tiny amount of odourless solvent as my "medium".

I have a little more to say on the ideas covered in my workshops in my article from a similar workshop I did last year.

I'm available to do workshops or demonstrations throughout the Great Southern, from Walpole to Kojonup, Katanning and Albany. Enquiries are also welcome from outside the region. If you have a group interested in a painting workshop, drop me a line at adolphin@westnet.com.au

I work in oils but several students have used acrylics with great success.

Examples from previous oil painting workshops:

Here are some of my demonstration paintings from previous workshops.

Wayne Swan: Digital caricature

Digital sketch in Photoshop:

Someone recently commented here that they enjoyed my caricatures and that they were looking for one of Wayne Swan. I didn't have one but with the Federal Budget going live earlier this week, I thought it was time to remedy that situation.

Last night I did this "quick" digital sketch. I hope to develop it further in the coming weeks.