It appears, through no fault of mine, that three new paintings will be headed off to Quidley&Company this week: Jezebel and Her Sister (the cow painting), 42x48" (106x123 cm), the painting featured in the Recovery Room posts, 36x60" (91x152 cm), and the Hayloft, 36x28" (91x71 cm).
Of course the one that's staying home doesn't have any paint yet. It's the blank one, with Todd in front of it, 78x48" (198x122 cm).
It's daunting to have that monster on the easel, plain white, staring back at me.
But we will conquer it! Today I made a drawing for it, on a cheap lined tablet, with a ballpoint pen. Had I known I'd like the drawing, and decide to use it as the basis for the initial charcoal drawing on the canvas, I might have done it in pencil, on decent paper.
But maybe, because I wasn't using better materials, I was more relaxed as I noodled around with the idea. It's often true that your best work comes out when you fool yourself into believing that it doesn't count. Too much attention to making an initial drawing perfect has spoiled many a good idea.
When I hot home, I scanned the drawing in black and white. In Photoshop it developed some pixelated portions (which I rather like) in the darkest passages. I'm going to say I put them there on purpose.
Here 'tis. If you have comments, let me know. The drawing is a remembrance of the lane leading to the first house I owned in France. The foggy painting, in one of the recent archive posts, is of the same lane. Actually, this looks somewhat closer to the real place.
Cheers!
Glad your posting daily busy boy!!!...Your archives posts are an awesome glimpse of your dogged hard work and consistent results..amazing my friend. Looking forward to following the progress of the latest beast...of which I'm certain you will slay!...would not have guessed you to begin w ballpoint pen on this but alas...should be fun to watch.
ReplyDeleteAfter a former instructor took my trusty pencil eraser away, I learned to concentrate on the original idea that I wanted to portray. I like the idea of scanning and tweaking the drawing!
ReplyDeletePat...Actually, I was scanning the drawing just to get it into my computer, and it was in Photoshop merely to re-size it. The interesting pattern was my computer's reaction to some very dense pen marks. I can't think of why I'd want to manipulate the image digitally, since it's just a working drawing. I'm old enough to still think that the most effective digits for me are on my hand.
DeleteAt that size, the painting should have the effect of a trompe l'oeil! Can't wait to see it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bruce. A new post will be up tonight about it, with photos.
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