Many Firsts
1st first: I put eyes behind a mask I’m painting. (I know, I’ve painted eyes behind 3D masks – doesn’t count…)
2nd first: I used Iridescent Silver from Golden Acrylics in my whites, pinks and light blues.
3rd first: I used Iridescent Bright Gold from Golden Acrylics as my yellow. (This gold worked really well as a yellow).
Here is a progression of my slathering of paint using the infamous magical palette knife:
Starting with black gesso as my undercoating I traced in some reference lines using tracing paper and a gray conte pencil. I then started blocking in my light areas while leaving the black gesso as my place-holder for darks. I also started experimenting with how the greens would work with the Iridescent Gold as the yellow and how the Iridescent Silver would work with the light blues and pinks. I wish the photo could capture the pearlescent sparkle of these colors.
I continued to add more color while starting to block in the eyes.
I began to fill in more of my middle values and worked towards my darkest colors. I also continued to define the eyes. I realized at this point that the iris on the right eye was a bit small. I would resolve this issue just prior to finishing. I like the slightly disconcerting feeling of the right eye being mostly hidden by the eye hole of the mask.
At this point I’m starting to fine tune my detail areas. There is still a lot of subtle nuance left to work on as well as that freakishly small iris.
And here we have it. I’m satisfied. It’s time to call it done and move on to my next one…
Quiet Desperation – 20″x16″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 2-7-10
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
When Experiments Work
When I paint with my palette knife I have to constantly wipe the blade clean to go for fresh color. I usually smear this paint residue across a folded paper towel before rinsing the blade and going on to the next color. I decided when I started painting “Sassy” late last week that I would smear this residue on an extra 8″x8″ canvas instead. Upon completing “Sassy” I decided to use the same color palette with my next painting, “Felicity”, so I could continue smearing the same colors on the aforementioned canvas. As you can see, by the time I was finished with “Felicity” I had a pretty cool abstract.
Well, I decided that as cool as this looked, it just wasn’t what I was after. Unless there are gaping eye sockets somewhere on the canvas I cannot feel validated. (That’s what it seems like, anyway.) So, I went looking for the perfect mask to include in this little abstract and came up with the following from a photo I took of the male mask during the creation process of “Loan Modification Request“.
I wanted to use the highlights and shadow pattern from this photo to bring out the image in the midst of the abstract chaos. To do this I used Ivory Black – for the first time in YEARS – and Titanium White. Instead of a palette knife I used my #8 & #10 round brushes and my fingers. (If you were to dust this painting for prints there would be no doubt that I was the culprit!).
Below is the final result. I hope you enjoy viewing him as much as I did creating him…
Transitive – 8″x8″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 2-3-10
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
I’m So Glad
Today’s painting is of the same mask I used in “Quiescence” last week. This time I explored a color palette that was more indicative of her actual coloring. I still had to pump up the volume on her colors a little, though, because the stain used on this mask is of a tremendously dark nature which makes lighting and shadow pattern an interesting challenge.
As I was finishing this painting, my favorite song from Cream titled “I’m So Glad” started playing on my i-tunes. The joy that is conveyed in that song always puts a smile on my face. I wanted to express that joy in the title of this painting, so out came my ever-trusty thesaurus. I found a word that not only expresses “happiness” or “anything producing happiness”, but also means “a quality or knack of appropriate and pleasing expression in writing, speaking, painting, etc.” (Websters New World Dictionary). Wow! This is something I’ve been striving for both as an artist and in my use of words. You can just imagine how my smile gained in amplitude upon finding this nugget of a word.
Felicity – 5″x4″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 2-2-10
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
OK, I’ve gotta’ quit smiling now. My cheeks are hurting…
Mardi Gras
A few years ago my family and I went to Galveston, TX while on vacation. While there I found a cool mask in a souvenir shop labeled as a Mardi Gras mask. Well, the price was right and I wanted a momento of Galveston so I bought it. (actually any excuse to acquire a new mask is a good one.) Since then, she has been featured in 5 of my paintings, including my most recent.
In my ongoing explorations with my magical palette knife (thanks Pam) I decided it was time to attempt this lovely lady’s countenance. I must say that she challenged me greatly – as she has done with each of her incarnations – so I decided to title her appropriately…
Sassy – 4″x4″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 1-30-10
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
In case you are interested, I have included her other incarnations in order of their original appearance.
As you will see, I have taken some liberties with her over the years.
Thankfully, she hasn’t held it against me.
At least I hope not…
Incendiary – 10″x8″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 4-28-03
©2003, Don Michael, Jr.
Hera – 10″x8″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 11-6-07
©2007, Don Michael, Jr.
Awake Within a Dream – 18″x24″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 5-31-08
©2008, Don Michael, Jr.
Nostalgia – 24″x36″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 8-5-09
©2009, Don Michael, Jr.
What Lies Beneath
I’ve been told I have one of these all my life. Maybe everyone does.
No, not a skull (that’s too easy)…
No, not bad teeth (I brush – c’mon!)…
…an Ornery Streak.
Ornery Streak – 4″x4″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 1-28-10
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
Even in the Quietest Moments…
Yesterday’s self-induced challenge was to use the Winsor & Newton color Renaissance Gold in lieu of yellow on my palette. Yikes! That created a marathon of frustration as I was never able to achieve the greens I wanted – even though I had also included Cobalt Green in the palette. I originally rounded out my palette with Red Oxide and Zinc White. But, once I got well under way I realized I was going to need some blue to balance all the earthy oranges and red-oranges so I got out my favored Phthalo Blue and added it to the mix. The resulting colors were not my original intent, but I was pleased with them none-the-less.
This mask is a little beauty I picked up from a street-vendor in Manhattan a few years ago. I put her to canvas once before in a very similar pose, but with a VERY different color scheme. I think I’ll be revisiting her soon from an entirely different angle…
Quiescence – 5″x4″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 1-27-10
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
When it came time to sign it I tried something new that I will NEVER do again. I used black gesso because I wasn’t happy with any of the colors I was mixing to sign off with. I discovered my mistake right away – you cannot wipe off the gesso if you’re not happy with it, even if you try immediately. Plus, I don’t like how its color does not belong to the rest of the color palette. I chose to not paint over it as both a lesson to myself and one to share.
Instead of leaving you with a negative I want to share this fun tidbit. I love zooming in on the texture created with the palette knife and checking out all the nuances I wouldn’t see otherwise. Here is a .75″x1.15″ detail blown up about 7x. You get a sense of all the layering of color that occurs as I glob and smear with the palette knife. You can also see a touch of the sparkle from the gold paint. Enjoy!
Quiescence – detail
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
The Offending Party
I’ve been asked a few times over the past several months about the palette knife or knives I may use for painting. Today I decided it was time to reveal the primary culprit. What you see below is the only palette knife I’ve used to any large degree. I have experimented with a few others, but I find this one to be the most comfortable to me.
I’ve been using this palette knife to mix paint for about 5 years. The first time I used it to actually apply paint to a canvas was in September of 2008 with the painting, “Hermes”. What started as an experiment took me and my paintings to a new level. It excited the painter in me in ways no other tool ever had. I wrote about that first experiment here, and then the affects it had on me here.
To give a sense of the actual size of this knife I have included my most recent painting, “Easily Amused”, and a ruler.
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
Smaller, Yet.
Well, last night I proved to myself I could paint a 4″x4″ canvas using only a palette knife. I’m quite happy with the results, as seems the subject. But, then, he’s “Easily Amused”.
Easily Amused – 4″x4″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 1-26-10
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
An interesting side-note. I always present my work here on my blog sized to 700 pixels on the largest side. I just realized that at 72 dpi this image – when clicked on – is more than double its original size. Talk about up-close-and-personal…
Tall Cool One
Recently, my art/blog friend, Douglas Hoover, completed a painting which included one of the best compositions I’ve seen on a 3:1 panoramic canvas. Please go check it out, you’ll be glad you did.
After seeing Douglas’ wonderful painting I decided that a panoramic style composition would be a good challenge for me to undertake. I went looking for a 3:1 canvas, but had to settle for one with a 5:2 aspect ratio instead – which was still a new challenge. I tried several designs both vertically and horizontally before deciding on my final composition (as you can see, panoramic is still on my challenge list). You may recognize the mask. This is another first – I created this composition based on a detail area of one of my earlier paintings. To create a trifecta of newness, I used the color Titanate Yellow (made by Golden Acrylics) for the first time. It sure takes a LOT of it to make any kind of impact – especially since I used Phthalo Blue and Cadmium Red Deep Hue as my other colors. I ended up using an entire 60ml tube for this one painting!
As I was slathering and smearing paint all over what was once a perfectly good canvas, I started thinking about new beginnings. The composition leant itself to this train of thought with the face rising out of the water and a morning glow beginning to appear on its right side. The best word I could think of to sum up these feelings is “Baptism”. I hope you enjoy…
Baptism - 40″x16″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 1-26-2010
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
Hooked on a Feeling
In my continuing quest to try new colors I discovered a color that can compete with Phthalocyanine Blue for dominance on the palette – Violet Oxide. I think this is the first red that I’ve used that can actually make that kind of an impact on the phthalo blue head-to-head. This made it really hard for the other colors, Yellow Oxide and Titanium White, to keep up.
You may recognize the mask in this painting as being from my recent major project, “Loan Modification Request”. He had such a negative roll to play in the previous painting that I had to give him a happier spin for this incarnation. I hope you enjoy…
High on Believing – 20″x16″ – Acrylic on canvas – Completed 1-21-10
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.
I had mentioned a while back that I work out the compositions and color schemes for a lot of my paintings in Photoshop. Several people have asked me to show my method so I thought I’d use this painting as my guinea pig. Bear with me, I’m new at this teaching thing…
I started with a photo from the early stages of “Loan Modification Request” that had the mask paper mache’d to the canvas and gessoed black. I really liked the shadow pattern and thought I could have some fun with it. The focus on the photo is very soft, but that doesn’t matter to me when I work on one of these projects. Using the crop tool (hi-lighted in the left tool bar) I cropped the image to 20″x16″.
After making a duplicate layer of my background I used the polygonal lasso tool (hi-lighted below) to create a selection of the eyes, nostrils and mouth. (I was not able to do a screen capture of this tool in use – sorry.) After creating the selection I pressed delete on my keyboard to erase those items. You can now see thru them. For Photoshop novices, the checkered background represents transparency.
Here it is over the background I created. In the interest of keeping this post from being ridiculously long I will address creating my backgrounds on a later posting.
I wanted the mask to have sharper features and higher contrast on its edges, so I used the filter Unsharp Mask (one of my favorite filters).
Here you can see the Unsharp Mask popup window. I moved the sliders around until I found what I was looking for. Notice the changes in contrast – gotta love it!
Now it’s time to have fun with the color of the mask. I first made a duplicate of my sharpened layer (always make major changes on a duplicate layer – that way you still have your original when you mess it all up). I then went to the Hue and Saturation adjustment.
I took the Saturation slider as high as it would go. Notice that this really pixelates the color. Have no fear, I have a solution…
…I’m going to blur the heck out of it using the Gaussian Blur filter.
I adjusted the slider up until the pixelations started blending together to make some pretty nice colors.
Now that it’s blurry I’ve lost all my crisp edges! No worries, I have the answer for that, as well.
First, below you’ll see my layers palette. You can see all my layers – the blurred brightly colored version, the sharpened version, the background, and the original image. Notice that there is a button that says Normal. This is a drop down menu which chooses the Blending Mode between the selected layer and the layer below it.
I want to change the Blending Mode for the blurred colorful layer from Normal to Color. You can see it hi-lighted below.
Hey look! Everything is crisp again! And now the colors look like they belong to the mask. I like how this has a brushed metal feel to it.
Well, I’m not satisfied. I want more drama. But, before I make any changes it’s time to duplicate the layers I want to adjust. You can see below that I’ve selected both layers to duplicate at the same time. (Selecting multiple layers like this is not possible in versions of Photoshop earlier than the Creative Suite. If you have an older version and need assistance feel free to email me.)
After both layers are duplicated I want to merge them. I have clicked in the drop down menu on the extreme top right of the layers palette and scrolled down to Merge Layers. (You can also do this from the Layers menu at the top of the screen.) It’s necessary for me to merge them to be able to do the next step.
I want to add more contrast to the values. The easiest way to do this quickly is to use the Curves adjustment menu (hi-lighted below).
In the Curves menu I have clicked in the middle of the diagonal line and started pulling it downward. You can see how the image is gathering more contrast – especially in the darkest areas.
Now that it’s darker, I want this layer to affect the layers below it. So, once again I’m using the Blending Mode – but this time I’m using Overlay (hi-lighted below).
Now that’s what I’m talking about! I can print this out, gesso my canvas black, get out the paints and palette knife and start slathering some paint around.
I hope you found this interesting.
Happy Creating!
©2010, Don Michael, Jr.