glazing

Before i get started on this I want to remind everyone to check out Larry Groff's blog on art, he's got interviews with great contemporary realists, it's real in-depth, intellectual smart guy stuff, not this goofy surfacey stuff. But, hey, I am what I am. There's a link to the right.

And speaking of surface, I had someone come in to the studio and dig through my to-be-fixed bin recently. She pulled out this 12x24 and said she was interested and I said okay but I have to rework it because it's extremely anemic. I painted it from the roof top of a 3 story house but because it was started around 3, that's the palette I ended up with. I hadn't looked at it in a while but definitely had a Yikes moment when presented with the errors of my past. She also said she would be interested to read about the glazing process, so I figured....... what the hay. I have extensive knowledge of the glazing process having done it now about 6 times so take that for what its worth. After a bit of research about what kind of medium to use i came up with a mix of damar varnish, turp and stand oil. It works great but is slow to dry so some patience is required. First a light coat of my medium with a touch of indian yellow, then three days to dry, then another layer with more indian yellow and a little red mixed in then three days to dry, one more with yellow and some burnt sienna and because I am not patient I just started in on the whole thing with opaque colors scumbled over the layers of glaze.

I'm told you can layer warm tones and green tones and pink tones and really get lovely effects. Ultimately I use the glazes to give an overall harmonious tone on top of the color and values I had already established. It's a lot of fun and an easy way to put some color into the cheeks of a palid painting.