Monday, April 12, 2010

In the Queue

Here are two projects that are in the queue for me. The first is a composition that I am doing in tempera with oil glazing. This is the first of many layers of tempera and the color will build up slowly. I go a bit against tradition so, hang on and see how it goes. It is the same composition as the charcoal drawing in my post 'Back in Black.'


Laura, Egg tempera on canvas, 8"x10"

I have posted this charcoal drawing that will become a painting I intend to do using charcoal and oil medium. I would like to take advantage of the beauty and visual vitality of the charcoal and the translucence of the medium as a glazing over the charcoal. I thought I would use white chalk with the charcoal but, in the end I will probably end up using titanium white oil for the highlights. I will start the project by laying out the drawing on a canvas on chipboard panel. The panel will be fabricated by mounting a primed canvas on chipboard with acrylic medium. I will then execute the first stage of the drawing in charcoal and as with the tempera, fix it with a coat of shellac. From that point I will add depth to the drawing with glaze and more drawing. I'm doing my favorite thing here, groping blindly. If you have done something like this, please chime in with a comment or leave me and my readers a link. I will post progress photos along the way for both pieces as well as more charcoal drawings. I'm still learning from them.



Crows, Charcoal on Paper, 8"x10"

I will leave you with a little appropriate music for a composition with crows.



Have a good evening and a lovely spring week ahead of you.

Brad

2 comments:

Elizabeth Seaver said...

I see very few people working with tempera, Brad. It is interesting to see what you're doing with it. I love the way this painting is starting out and look forward to seeing progress on it.

Brad Gailey said...

Thanks for the kind words. This is egg tempera. I also use poster tempera and fix it with shellac. Try it sometime when you are wanting to experiment, I think you'll like it, especially the way the color explodes when the shellac hits it.

Brad