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