Finished Painting

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull this one off this morning. I had a drastic change of thought regarding the composition. I wasn't happy with the man in the painting. It just felt too cluttered having him there. It also meant that that lovely shaft of smoky light falling onto the chair and surrounding area was partly hidden so I decided to remove him. I'm much happier with the overall effect now and VERY glad that my experiment is finished.

I've made a couple of close ups so you can see the effect created more easily. Firstly the smoky upper section of the painting where I used mostly blues to help accentuate that feeling of height and distance.

secondly the woman crouching by the fire, enjoying its warmth while quietly waiting for the men to return.

I haven't a clue what to call this one. Any ideas?

Ona

Long House WIP 6

  

  It's been slow going over the last few days but the painting is beginning to take shape. I have a little more work to do on the basket next to the chair but other than this I just have the fireplace and people left to paint. Its so hard to get a true reflection of the painting on the screen. Some of the smoky atmosphere is lost in the photo above and the colours are slightly off but I hope you get the idea. Multiple glazes really help to create distance and atmosphere but its so hard to photograph.

Ona

Long House WIP 5

After a few days rest from this while I was sorting out the frame for the NWWS exhibition painting it was good to be able to pick up the brushes again.

I've now finished the background of the long house. Missionaries who visited these long houses often wrote about how dark and smoky the interior of these dwellings were. I wanted to capture that smoky, dimly lit atmosphere so the painting is much darker and more smoky than my reference photo. These traditional buildings were windowless structures between 25 and 30 metres long and six to nine metres wide and high. They were made of poles bent over to form an arbour, which was then covered with bark and saplings. There were low doors at each end and holes in the roof which let smoke out and light in. There were usually three fires in each long house so they would often get extremely smoky. Indeed the smoke often caused eye disease among the old.

I think I am going to paint in the floor of the building next.

Ona

Long House WIP 4

Working on this is so exciting. As I add in the grasses and furs and then wash over with the final couple of glazes I am loving the effect that is being created. It's so difficult to capture on the screen the really musty smoky feel that is appearing on the paper. I think this is because on the screen the light is shining from behind which seems to sharpen the image rather than blur it but I hope you get the idea from the photo above.

I am so pleased with how effective glazing is for creating smoky atmospheres and receeding objects further into the background. If you look closely on the left hand side of the photo, you can see that I have completed the furs and grasses in this section. However, I have only laid down the first wash of two on the hanging curved reed. As a result the rope-like reed looks far further forward than the hanging grass, where in reality it is behind it. A couple more washes on this section should do the trick.

I am making the whole scene duskier than in my ref photo because I am planning to not have the extra light shining through the doorway so the light shining through the ceiling and upper window is accentuated thus increasing the smoky atmosphere of the painting...well thats my plan. Fingers crossed I can put the idea I can see in my head onto the paper.

Ona

Long House WIP 3

 The background of this scene is now basically finished. I will need to do a couple more washes in certain areas to bring some of the furs and grasses into the smokey haze once they are painted, especially around the top grasses which will darken the mid top section a little more but other than this the basic atmosphere is created.

 As a whole the process went quite smoothly. There are some things I would do differently if I painted it again (more in the creation rather than altering the final effect) but thats all part of the learning experience isn't it. Glazing certainly works well for creating a smoky atmosphere. I'm really pleased with the effect. I need to do a bit of tidying up now before I begin to put in the grasses, furs, pillars and curtained doorway.

Ona

Using Glazing to Accentuate Distance and Height!

I'm progressing slowly with the background of the long house but I'm learning so much as I paint.

My hypothesis that a glazing technique can be used to help push things into the background or give depth or height to a scene is working well. Basically the further away something is the more glazes you put on after the detail. The closer an object is the more glazes you do before the detail with maybe only a wash or two after.  Glazing over detail helps to soften the edges and blur which helps our minds to read this as further away. Using colour helps too. I have used warm yellows and browns close to us and blues further away. Using these techniques this is how far I have reached as of this evening.

I thought you would like to see how effective this glazing technique is so I took an 'in progress' photo earlier today when I had finished the detailing on the whole of the ceiling section I have been working on but had only painted the 5 or so layers of glazing on half of the section.

Can you see how on the unglazed section the beams appear far further forward than on the glazed section? Also compare the two photos and see how the whole area recedes into the background and develops much more of a feeling of height once the layer of glazing is complete. It also helps to evoke a misty/smoky feel.

I have the really smoky/sunlit section to do next. This is such fun.


Ona