Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Step by Step- oil painting

Lately, I have been taking pictures on my iphone of my oil paintings as they evolve and change. I tend to work in layers, I'm interested in what happens when the paint builds up and also when you start sand back into it. Doing this helps me to see where areas have changed for the better, and perhaps areas where I lost some beautiful information that I want to bring back. Here is a series of photos to show my process in my latest painting. A nice, cropped picture of the final painting soon to come. This panel I made is 3ft x 3ft
 Started out by loosely blocking in color and roughly the areas they belonged to. I love the natural beauty of the wood, and thought it would be nice to expose parts of it in this piece.



 At this point the painting became too precious. I wasn't making progress because I was scared of ruining any little place. So the only option was to obliterate it.

 Working back into it to bring back the image.



 
Just about finished. Because of the mess I made a few steps earlier, I was able to bring out some small and unpredictable details that add a lot overall to this painting.

The inspiration from this piece comes from a run down building in downtown Provo that was really quite quirky and non-sensical. I wanted to look at it more as a flat composition of color, shapes, and line, while still making the fact that it's a building somewhat recognizable. I love weathered architecture, especially when it's really odd and has very unpredictable parts to it. I am a big supporter and believer in small businesses. I think my use of old buildings as subject matter ecetnly is in response to my love for local, family-run, and or small businesses. There is something really fantastic about that whole concept, especially as the world becomes more advanced and more out of touch with it's local community. I want people to appreciate and recognize the beauty of this idea, and hopefully think more about supporting them so their little building doesn't just get demolished to make way for a large, corporate business that will tear down the history of a whole block just to make room for an office building.

Hope you enjoyed this friends. Cheers!

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