Both of these paintings I completed last month but only now have I had the chance to photograph them. I have been painting fairly small lately. Nothing has been over six or seven inches. Working in the same scale is getting a little boring for me. All of my small brushes have spread out and become nearly unusable. This has lead me to using brushes that are at least half an inch wide. Its good for simplifying the forms and planes but I can't get any detail or refinement.
I have almost always worked the same way. Toned ground painted thinly with a fairly neutral color followed by non-thinned oils. I use fairly thick applications of paint in large strokes. It is the way I was taught. I've been playing around with the idea of a more deliberate and thinned approach. I don't know if I'll go all the way to glazing but thinner paint might make for more extended painting sessions. I can't seem to carry any kind of momentum for longer than an hour and a half to two hours. That might also be a scale issue but I don't think so. The self portraits I did back in April only took a little more than a couple of hours and they were significantly bigger.
In other news, I found this blog by the illustrator, James Gurney. He is known for his work on the Dinotopia books and another book he wrote Imaginative Realism. Every day he posts really interesting articles about being an artist, painters and illustrators of the past, and other really interesting stories. Definitely worth following if you are into artists, painting, or illustration.
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