Azure Breeze

"Azure Breeze" 21"x 36" oils on tempered masonite.

Copyright Rick Hansen 2015.

Thornwall Sprite

This painting took six months to finally be completed. It was always on the back of my mind that I had to get it done before the end of the year(2013). My studies and full time work and family commitments was taking their toll on finding quality time to do personal projects. So when I was on the holiday break I put head down and finished it just before new years…with relief. As I've mentioned previously I want to paint more. It appears life is moving faster and faster and I want at least a good amount of finished paintings before I'm living on the wrong side of the ground. So here are my efforts from last year.

All Hope Abandon, Ye who Enter Here!

I was only able to do few illustrations this last time and I thought I'd do something a little different. Knowing that I'm not overly fantastic with watercolours, I thought I'd experiment with one of the illos I had to do for an upcoming HARP product. Although I think I did reasonably well, I had to tweak it digitally to adjust values in certain areas of the painting. It's destined to be a b&w piece, so when I converted it to greyscale it showed the weak areas of my values. Overall it was a good learning exercise for me and it'll make me a little more aware of my values in future attempts.

Nymph (Elsa Hosk Study)

G'day all, I hope everyone had a good new years day and that this year will be a much better one than the last. Unfortunately last year was not a very good one for our family, particularly for my wife, as her health had deteriorated very quickly. But there is a light on the horizon and she is now beginning to recover once again.

 Now that I am able to focus on the inconsequential things in life such as painting and drawing I thought I'd share a head study and its process. It has been soooo long since I've painted anything that I was afraid I might ruin it. Anyway here is the finished piece below 9"x12.5" it is of the model Elsa Hosk. I came across a b&w photo of her and something clicked in my brain that I had to paint it. Now unfortunately I couldn't find an actual colour photo of the same picture so all the colour you see is from scratch, so I took liberty of hair and eye colour etc.

Below is the initial graphite drawing on 300gsm watercolour paper mounted on tempered masonite.

Before I glued the paper to the masonite I very LIGHTLY dampened the masonite and brushed a very thin milky coat of PVA glue. Reason that I did this is that if your paper is TOO wet any residual dust of the masonite can stain though to the paper and that means acid gets into the paper. Once the masonite is dry(I left mine overnight) I then wet the paper and added a liberal amount of glue to the masonite and place the paper which I then use a roller to ease all the bubbles and wrinkles out, then I let that dry overnight. Just a tip, don't let your paper get too wet, just enough to stop the glue sucking up into the paper to much.

Below I'm ready for the first coat of acrylic matte medium. I just used a soft brush as I didn't want heavy brush strokes showing, I'm not a big fan of surface texture. Just keep a tin of water close by to wet the brush every now and then to help the medium cover easier. Here I used about 40ml overall for this painting, oh and don't forget to paint the edges of the masonite incase the oil paint gets on it and interferes with the masonite's integrity. 

Below I squeezed Burnt Sienna straight from the tube onto the surface and rubbed it down with a rag to get an even coat(you can also do this with a brush) for my underlay. I used the rag to pull out the paint for the lighter areas and for the really white areas such as the bubbles I use a rubber shaper, they are pretty good at lifting out paint.

Below I started to work the background and water which I did in one pass.

Here I began my first pass for the skin tone using yellow ochre, english red and raw umber. I basically plotted out my light and shadows. Looks more like zombie flesh at this stage.

Below is the second pass for my skin tones adding the yellow for the forehead, red for the cheeks and neutralising around the mouth. I thought I best add some colour for the hair to see how the darker value would go against the rest of the head. Around the eyes as I added the dark lashes and brows as the drawing underneath started to fade from the covering paint.

From the last step to this one below I worked the skin tones quite a bit as I wasn't happy how the left cheek was coming along regarding hue, it had turned a brown that just wasn't working at all. It's these times that I leave the painting dry and come back to it the next day so I can se with fresh eyes and decide how to tackle the problem.

It took me some time to get to the stage where I was happy with the skin tones. One of my goals in painting flesh is not to have it look like plastic as seen in many paintings these days. William Whitaker is one artist that is fantastic at achieving this effect, needless to say he's one of my favourite artist. By this stage of the painting it's time to hone in on the details and do all those fiddly bits that make it all gel together. 

Well here it is with all the details completed. I added a glaze of indian red over the cheeks as they just weren't rosy enough. I had some conflicting moments with my water bubbles as I couldn't get them to look right but I think I pulled it off well enough in the end. 

I also have to give a big HIP HAZZAR! to my dad who bought me proper lights to take pictures of my paintings, as you can see it turned out smicko! The previous wip shots where taken on the back veranda.

Here's a close up. I'm rather happy about how the water droplets came out, I had to do a little research on how to paint them. And I very much love my freckles on a woman's face, I guess it's because I'm an Aussie ;)

If you enjoyed reading this post, I encourage you to hit the follow button as it encourages me also to put up these works in progress shots. Or if you know someone that wants to paint in oils and think some of my tips might help them please let them know.  

Cheers, Rick.

Exhibition

From the 30th of November 2011 to the 15th of January 2012 my painting "Dragon Emperess" will be displayed in gallery 2 of the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery. The theme for the exhibition is called "Cracked".

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge: Fireaxe.

Well, it's finally finished, and I have to say I really enjoyed doing this one. I've learnt heaps again...more so what not to do, alway trying to fail better next time. ;D
Anyway, I hope my works in progress has enlightened you in some way and that you've enjoyed the journey as much as I have. Cheers!

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 6-7

I have finished off the womans details and I have let it dry for day or so. Now comes the interesting part of adding the stars. Knowing that the white paint that I have is slow drying and the deadline was very close, I decided in the end to use goauche. I had a brush that had some thick bristles, I think it's used for craft glue. Anyway, I masked up my painting with some ordinary baking paper with cut away areas....see below. I then watered down my gouache a little dipped in the brush and used the handle of another brush to fling the paint around. Have to say it was over in no time and the effect looked really good. I then used a soft make-up brush dipped in water to clean away any unwanted stars. I used a really small watercolour brush to add in the blank spaces to eleiminate any black holes.

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 5

I put in quite a few hours on the weekend and got alot done on the womans face. There's still much more to go on her and the mans face before they're done. I know it's not a very good shot of it but hey, I'm not a good photographer ;) The deadline is approaching fast and I think I'm going to invest in some cobolt drier to speed things up next time round.

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge Flesh Pallet

I thought I'd show you what I meant in my last post about the paint strings. Here is the photo of the pallet I'm currently useing for the male head. On the right is my value stick, something I made for myself some time ago. On the left is the globs of Grey, Yellow Ochre, Terra Rosa. In the middle is my paint patches to try and get the values right. The left paint patch is of Indian Red which I'll most likely use for lips nose and ears later on in the process. Trying to find the value of a colour is something that I've yet to achieve with remote success. With my reds above I have found I'm a little off the mark after looking at them through photoshop, my Yellow Ochre appears to be right....at least that's something I guess ;)

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 4

So here's the latest update. As you can see I've done quite a bit on the insect-like ship. I decided to go with a green metalic colour scheme. I'll wait 'till the ship is totally dry before I attempt any further painting. While waiting for the lower part to dry I started painting in the males head. I laid out globs of paint in value strings of 1,3,5,7, and9. In those strings I have Yellow Ochre, Terra Rosa and Grey.

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 2 - 3

At this stage I bended the background more trying to ease the space into the sky, I'm still not satisfied how it's going and will work on it more once it's dry.

I've decided to add the the snow in and play around with the elements that make up the lower scene. I added Magenta, Cyan mixed with 50/50 Titainium White and Lead White for the shadow of the snow.

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 1

Here I've started laying in the first layers of colours. First off, I cover the board in Translucent Cyan and rubbed out the areas I wanted to show white. I'm useing Cresent illustration board whith a few coates of gesso. Next I started the really dark areas with Ivory Black and Prussian Blue. I still need to lay in more dark areas so that it merges with the sky better.

Tiara of the Phoenix

Here's another gouache I finished last night. It's 4x6" on 300gsm w/c paper.

Eowyn and the Nazgul: Finished

So here is my effort for the Artorder challenge. Have to say I did learn a few things while doing this painting.
My outlook on how to increase my skills and knowledge about painting has change also. Trying to learn to paint on your own is a pretty hard slog, and knowing which direction to take can be a mystery, or illusive to say the least. But as they say 'painting is an old man's trade" so I'll keep gnawing away at it...no matter how long it takes. Anyway, I have a few experiments I have to try out soon with my paints, so keep watching and I'll post them in the near future.

Eowyn and the Nazgul: Almost done.

Well, at this stage I'm really close to the deadline so I'm doing my best to get most of it done.

Eowyn and the Nazgul: The Background.

Well, it's that moment where I throw on the colour. I have to admit I was starting to worry as I wasn't sure if I knew how it would look but throwing caution to the wind I kept at it. There was one stage I wasn't sure how to blend the dark clouds into the blue sky and decided to leave it for awhile. When I was outside feeding our animals, I looked up and studied the clouds for a bit and found my answer there, doh!


On my preliminary drawing I added in Minus Tirith to work out the perspective and placement. Once done, I used tracing paper to transfere it over onto my painting. I dry brushed some raw umber on the back of the tracing paper and then carefully placed it over my painting. I then ran a pencil over the lines which left small traces of raw umber lines of Minis Tirith...wahlah!


So here I've started on the Nazgul's wings...and still a long way to go.

Preliminry Sketch for Eowyn and the Nazgul

Here is the preliminary sketch for the Eowyn vs. the Nazgal. As you can see it looks a little bare without the details but I'm not concerned at this point, as I can add that later in as I go. The main compositional elements are there for me to begin.




The next step is to take my drawing and transfer it to my oil sketch paper(Canson). I'm fortunate to have a huge light box which was an old cigarette advertising display. I've had this packed carefully away for several years untill I had room to put it somewhere, now it's in my "studio"...if you could call it that :D




The last step before the real fun starts is the underpainting. Here I use burnt sienna, I've always used this because I love it for it's warm undertones, especially under flesh colours.

Lion's Pride

Nymph Reflections

Here is another postcard art in gouache. I'm finding that this medium would be good for colour studies for larger projects. Still, there is a far road to travel before I could say that I'm at least proficient at gouache. I still prefere it to watercolours and a lot more than acrylic...blah! ;)

Capt. Hook Portrait

My wife had bought an old ornate oval picure frame which had been guilded in gold. She found it at the local op-shop for $4, What a bargin!!! Even though some of the gold has worn off, it is still a very nice frame. She reqested that I do a portrait painting with a victorian theme with curly hair. So in the end I decided to paint Jason Issacs in the character of Captain Hook from Peter Pan. I wanted to paint in a more painterly style this time round so it's a little different how I would normally paint. I enjoyed the challenge of this one and I hope you enjoy looking at the result.