Terracotta warrior - final... Painting dirt... literally!

A third layer seemed to be enough to get me more or less to where I wanted to be...

... a few coats of varnish did the rest (last coat was mat)!

This painting will be a gift for a young black belt who currently lives in a condo in Toronto... and the warrior looks threatening enough to send any of his future guests in the opposite direction! Enjoy Eric!!! ;-)

Terracotta warrior - step II... Trying to get there as fast as I can!

My objective with this painting is to complete it with 3 layers flat, keeping as much freshness as possible totally in line with the terracotta look...

I'm gearing up for highlights with a palette knife and the addition of some Chinese calligraphy...

Note to self: "I'm noticing big time that my work on raw canvas is having quite an influence on the way I'm smearing this canvas..."

Painting commission: Terracotta warrior - step I... Laying down the foundation...

Back from vacation, I took 30 minutes or so this evening to lay down the foundation for a painting that will be offered to my friend's son...

I'm going for a monochromatic composition that will appeal to a young martial artist: one of the famous Chinese terracotta warriors of the first emperor of China! This is a 19 by 34 canvas...

Wine drinking as a substitute for painting... I'll drink to that!

Taking a break from painting... to enjoy Sandbanks (3 1/2 half hours from Montreal) with some good friends...

There is always some painting opportunities... like these kids mingling with the local birds...

... I'll drink to that!

Venus and the red planet final... Going for some encaustic like effects!

I'm still trying to gauge the amount of paint that I should use on a black and grey "chimney soot" underpainting...

 Evidently, I'd like to tip the scale towards less paint than more paint. Tinted soot is perhaps the way to go to short-circuit the process...

Note: In the first photo, the lighting (the sun) was sideways to show textural effects. I got carried away a little in the "dripping" department! The glossy surface is very reflective (values appear off at places), something I plan to correct with a coat of varnish. In the interim, I implemented some corrections here and there to improve facial features...

Venus and the red planet - step III... Trying to find my vocabulary!

I took an hour or so today to further explore potential techniques with chimney soot as underpainting...

I got carried away a little and may have to step back to recuperate some black. Sooner or later, I will find the proper balance to capitalize fully on the chimney soot underpainting. At the very least, I seem to be getting some interesting textures and nuances...

Note to self: "Riding on the coat tail of soot is enough to influence my vision it seems. The question is: can I leverage it to the fullest?"

Venus and the red planet - step II... Rethinking the idea behind it...

I just came back from a 5 day trip in my home town to help out my elderly parents with chores around the house. Before I left, I applied a layer of "plastic" on my painting in progress...

The effect was very much like gluing a Chinese black ink painting to a canvas. In finalizing this painting, I will replace Neptune by Mars and refer to the woman as Venus... letting the observer freely interpret the meaning behind it.

During my stay, I had plenty of time to think. I'd like my future art to be more spontaneous and allow for more unpredictability in technique. This may imply deliberately seeking accidents with each layer and leveraging these accidents along the way. In a nutshell, I want less planning in-between layers thus paving the way to a series of construction/deconstruction before the final work.

Venus and the red planet - step I... Still at it!

I took some time today to start a new painting to see how far I could go with soot alone as underpainting. I realized quickly that using ivory black and then charcoal black was the only way to get where I wanted rapidly...

I finished this first step on the grass, in order to stick around with our grand kids...

I took the opportunity to do my own version of "Déjeuner sur l'herbe"!