Backgrounds

I’ve been working on backgrounds and the relationship between the subject and the background. Some of my pictures have started out with just a plain shade of white/cream, kind of a scientific approach, like a technical diagram, a forensic study of a particular specimen. The earlier shells had backgrounds of sand or water, more like the subject in its natural surroundings. Lately I’ve been going more for a “portrait” approach, the subject is posed like a human and the background is part of the picture but not dominant or competing for attention. Sometimes it’s hard to find just the right shade or combination of shadows that sets up the portrait of the shell in just the right way. Sometimes I try several different approaches. Sometimes the background is smoothed out, sometimes the brush marks show. I’m not a smooth person, I lean towards the painterly. I like it when the shell has a “monumental” look, like more than a shell, like “2001 Space Odyssey”, floating there in time. I have not yet tried black or deep siennas, but they are on my list. It seems like the shells are a brightly lit seaside thing not a dark thing, so that is another concept to think through and decide.

 These three have realistic backgrounds.

 These three I recently reworked the backgrounds in various shades of beige, blue, sand, greys. I'm still making up my mind about some.

 The razor clam has some wet sand beneath it, but it's not textured like sand. I originally wanted it to just float in space like a specimen or a shell on a page in a notebook, but it didn't quite make it.






This one I just repainted the background a lighter shade of grey, but now the whole painting is too grey. I need to shift the color scheme for the background some, but haven't decided what to do. I'm thinking of adding a shadow to the right, like there would be in a portrait.

Shell Games Boxed In – Technical Details

I have been told by my children who are omniscient that a blog must have blow-by-blow detail oriented descriptions of works in progress. As I said earlier, as I have invented this blog, I get to make the rules. I do, however, have some technical details that may be of interest to people who also paint.

Drawing the Image

Since starting my sea shell series I have been working from life. No digital cameras, laptops or projection devices. Working from life is sometimes a problem on a cloudy day, or when the angle of the sun changes, but it was a goal of mine when I started and I think that it works well for this type of subject matter.

I usually draw an image on canvas directly with turpenoid thinned paint in monochrome, typically burnt umber or occasionally cobalt blue. The burnt umber seems to be a unifying element for me, creating some level of cohesion within the picture. I always start with a white canvas; underpainting tends to throw me off a little when it comes to color choices and seems to “deaden” the colors. I prefer the bright white of the canvas, especially with aquatic subjects which need some brightness to them anyway.

In this case I deviated from my usual methods. Given the complexity of the image, I knew it could take several sessions to draw and that I wanted to use a medium I could make corrections to days later. An oil sketch wasn’t going to allow that easily. So I drew the image using a graphite pencil. I also gridded off the subject into four pie shaped quadrants using toothpicks and string wedged into the edges of the box so that I would have some reference points when drawing and wouldn’t get too far off base. Remember, I’m not using a projector, but in retrospect it may have been a wise and labor saving choice to use one. But, too late now! Something to think about next time I do a subject like this.

As soon as I started to paint with oils I noticed that the pencil dissolved, muddying the paint layers. I was perplexed at first as to how to avoid this, but took a can of charcoal/mixed media fixative and sprayed down the entire painting. It worked wonderfully and no more bleeding of the graphite. I was a little worried about permanence, but I had read elsewhere that this was an acceptable method and it does work well. However, I think that in the future, I will stick to drawing with paint. I really didn’t like working with the pencil on the bumpy canvas surface anyway.

Sunshine and Shadow

Some of the shadows have layers of glaze on them that gives additional depth and resonance to those areas that recede. Sometimes I use a homemade formula, other times I use Liquin. I love the slippery flow of Liquin and its smell. It is delicious. However, it does dry relatively fast, so it is not workable forever.

For highlights I used some Titanium white mixed with a tiny bit of pigment on areas where there were little glimmers of light. I ended up adding, deleting and softening several times before I came up with something that looked just right, adding a little pop of realism without taking over.

Shell Games Boxed In

This picture has to be one of my favorites. The outside circular perimeter is an antique green shaker box that has been in my grandmother’s house forever. Every summer when I was a child when we were visiting her we would open the box and feel the softness of the tiny shells (they are all about 3/8 of an inch long, max) against our skin. The potent aroma of cloves would rise up out of the box (those brown things amongst the shells in the painting are cloves), with a slight musty something else mixed in. When I smell that aroma I am six again and sitting on the front staircase in the unlighted hallway feeling the cool shells against my arms, before I return to the open attic to find more precious treasures to play with.

This painting has taken a while. It borders on the tedious to paint and takes a fair amount of tenacity to work on. The original shells were mostly very white, my interpretation of them is more varied. I hope I have stayed away from making them look too much like jelly beans. Ugh! I think the painting has presence, whatever that means. Magnetism? At any rate, I like it. I should probably turn it to the wall for a month or two and see if I still like it. I have been picking at it, tweaking the details and fine tuning it to death in between working on other paintings as well. I am uncertain whether the details (see close up) are clean enough, or whether I need to go more photorealistic, though I think it is too late for that. All paintings have some evolution in them; otherwise give up painting, use crayolas and color inside the lines instead. That may be a little harsh. Sometimes it is restful to just color, but even then there are unavoidable micro-decisions that filter through all that we do.

Close Up of Shell Games Boxed In

So my questions for ya’ll are these:

Is it done?

More “finish” or leave it as it is? The shells are still a little rough when viewed up close. I purposely left out the patterning on most shells, it seemed too busy and distracting. The finished look is cleaner without.

The long curved inside edge shadow has been re-worked multiple times, as has the background and all those tiny points of shadow and reflections on the shells. Question: Leave it or tweak it some more?

I am tired, but I’m thinking it needs just a tiny bit more before I can let go of it completely. Maybe I’ll be one of those artists who keeps adding details to pictures years after they’ve been hung. I can see myself at a party some day saying, “Oh that’s one of my pictures, wait just a second, Luv, I’ve got some paint in my car, let me touch up that highlight a bit, add some more seaweed.” Now that is something I hadn’t considered, seaweed.

-Vicky