the endless in between

hello again. two posts from me today how rare. i have another one in my head that i want to write about as well about an artist that i recently discovered and like, especially his painting videos. i find him very inspirational. i should right more about artists i like. its a good way to discuss influences and Art in general, its good to look at other peoples work and not get wrapped up in your own.

but more of that next time. i finished a piece today, added the highlights. i am very pleased with myself. I'm hoping to work on my organization more though. i did however work on this everyday till it was done, even though i did mess around on the Internet for to long at times. i need to work on my self control and my time planning.

this piece was created using drawing pens, alcohol based markers, watercolour paint, acrylic and white in on Bristol board. its title is sanctuary:- the endless in between. well it is for the moment. I'm not 100% on the title. i would like to become better at titling my pieces. shame I'm not good with my words :/ i have talked about this piece in other journals and will do my best not to repeat myself. i thought it would be nice to have all the process pictures in one place.

this piece has been quite trouble some. i messed up on the colouring of the first line art (can be seen here http://wildhaggisis.blogspot.com/2009/09/one-of-3-pieces-im-currently-working-on.html) and started again, didn't like the second one so i started again (as mentioned in this blog http://wildhaggisis.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-be-illustrator-and-late-new.html) so this is the third attempt. than there was the fact my masking fluid peeled all the marker work i did on the chains D:<

no just line art to show you guys, so strieght to the marker work, everything here except the chains is at the stage you'll see in the finnished picture.

i finished the marker work on the chain. and masked it off. i decided to go for purple based storm clouds because it was unnatural. i wanted it to be a glimpse into her psyche, the storm clouds being the tension that's been building up from the outside world and unnatural clouds seemed to be appropriate. i added Payne's grey (which i'm running out of), rose madder and Prussian blue to the mix to add volume. to the clouds splattering it onto the background at times. i then took my white ink and added the highlights to the clouds, washing it out to blend the colours better with the background.

here i took the masking fluid off which removed the chain work with it :( i went over the chains with white acrylic to define where the chains where so i could paint them easier later. next came the ice. i tried a new painting technique here. i made the paint exceptionally watery and painted it on an upright easel. most watercolourists paint there work flat due to the nature of watercolour. this technique however requires the surface to be tilted. i applied the watercolour in thin layers of blues an purples, i also added really watery acrylic to it which created an interesting look. as you paint you take a cloth and wipe some of the paint off, and keep repeating this process again and again till a number of light washes have been layered over the top of each other.

this technique lost a lot of the original line work, so i went in defined where the bottom layer of spikes where added shadows where they where i wanted parts to be darker and then started my drizzling technique again. i then when though the painting and added bright white highlights using acrylic paint straight from the tube as i wanted the texture of it at that point. here's a close up of the ice been worked on.


next i pained all the chain work. i mixed black and White with silver paint to create various shades of a metallic grey colour. after i applied it it was to metallic and reflected a lot of light and looked out of place. so i went through the painting with watered down white acrylic over the chains and wiped it off with a cloth so that enough paint was left behind to not affect the colours but to take away the shine. next time i think i will mix my greys instead of relaying on silver paint. once the painting was dry i removed the masking tape leaving a nice white outline around the picture.

so that's some of the process i went though with this picture. I'm hoping to update again tomorrow with an update about those inspirational vids i talked about. they really made me want to paint. but its getting late here so i should stop writing now.

happy drawing/writing/ whatever you guys do

haggis