Author: M

in progress still- but nearly there. ties in with the ships from an earlier post or two

couple sketches and little things I’ve been poking at

got some feedback, cleaned things up. this one can stay lineart for a more simple read…

i’m working on a bigger piece, kind of a mashup of tudor london and a futuristic overbuilt NYC… still roughing the thing together.

also random clockbots and a winslow homer copy 

Here are two paintings from today at El Matador state beach:

these are both Casein on a cold press watercolor block, 6×8″. The palette was titanium white, ultramarine blue deep, cad yellow light, golden ochre, ivory black, burnt umber, burnt sienna, & rose red, all richeson brand.

The short version is that I really like the casein. The major difference between these and the gouache/watercolor paints I usually work with is that the casein is significantly more opaque. In gouache, your ability to paint light over dark (or vice versa) is very limited, as the paint will pick up the underlying color, even if you’ve given it time to dry. You can’t paint white on black on white all day in casein, but it picks up far less of the underlying paint. This makes more ‘structural’ painting easier, as you can lay down a base color, then paint your lights, then your darks, etc. The even, matte surface it dries to helps here as well. It isn’t quite as matte as gouache, but close. The opacity/coverage also makes casein more forgiving than other water based media, as you can repaint passages and boldly restate edges for a cleaner finish. Wet into wet painting is really satisfying here as well: you can generate smooth transitions and slick gradients as well as with any other media I’ve tried, although you have to work quickly as the casein dries fast.

The only thing I’m not 100% sold on yet is the color selection available and the vibrance of some of the colors: the ultramarine blue deep and the burnt umber seem slightly weaker than their w&n watercolor equivalents. and I’m not sure if that’s an unavoidable difference in the media, an optical illusion, or if those colors are just less good than the rest of the available tubes. I intend to do some testing to figure that out, but I think it isn’t a dealbreaker- it performs really well everywhere else.

Here’s a quick prop sheet for yon barbarian, a random valentine’s day bit of nonsense, and some rough comps for a painting in the works..

I went up to big bear this last weekend and found some time to work out a couple of paintings – these were both in the neighborhood of 50 mins in the field and another 10 or 15 back in the studio. It’s interesting to see how much tightening up a painting helps. At one point both of these seemed like they were in real trouble, but cranking on a little section of painting sorts the whole thing out, both in the traditional paintings and in the digital stuff. Brushwork still needs more economy, but is generally better. Also: after reading a bunch about it on James Gurney’s awesome blog, I bought some Casein paints this week- hoping to try ’em out this weekend. Stay tuned!

 

but on hold for a sec. slowly turning out, this one