pencil pencil pencil

i have tried different methods of starting a painting, but at the moment the one that seems to best suit my needs is doing the penciling first. i am primarily a penciller and that has always been my favorite medium, either for the texture or for the ease of control. it is time consuming, but as a technique, in my opinion there's nothing more impressive than a good pencil work. it shows all the artist's craftsmanship. I've been doing some pencil work before applying the underpainting, which have helped me to have more control over the values and the overall mood of the painting.



Materia: Earth
(yeah, I have horrible finger nails. besides being an incurable nail biter, they are usually dirty with graphite. never seen any point in nail polishing either. but i almost always had the boys i wanted. :P)


Materia: Water (detail of the mandala)


Portrait of Angie

work in progress: The Calling

feeling a little handicapped since my laptop cable broke inside. no way to use it until the new cable arrives, what may happen next week. I can't access my softwares and reference pictures and other important stuff for a while. fortunately I have the family desktop available at least to read and answer emails. but as there are bad things that come for good (pretty much all of them, I'd say,) I can now catch up with my readings and give some deserved rest to my poor eyes, that have been suffered a lot on the screen exposure.

I keep on working on the non nude pieces that will be shown at the cafe next month (what, didn't I tell you that I'm going to display some works at the Common Grounds Coffee House, in Lexington- KY next month?) they don't want nudes, so I'll have to complete my set of paintings with some new ones.









feeling specially happy with this one, named The Calling, and pondering whether or not I should put it for sale. I've been putting a lot of emotional energy in this painting, that ended up becoming pretty much a type of self-portrait. yep, it's my face again. The Calling is about the freedom of being yourself and following your path in life, or responding to the call of your soul. it has a more organic aesthetic and also more naturalist. it seems that I definitely incorporated the heart in my personal iconography, along with the masks and butterflies...

Tree of Life - how a painting is born, part I

I decided to give me a more prolonged break from the the triptych and work in a different project. since I had planned to submit a piece to the beautiful Embracing Our Differences exhibit, I decided to start working on it. I thought that it might be also a good opportunity to show in more details how I create and build a picture - and how crazy and erratic the creation process can be.

the image submitted to the exhibit should not be very complex, but rather transmit the idea of acceptance and tolerance of the differences in a direct way. sometimes it's not easy for me to think simple, I have a certain knack for complexities - but not exactly because I plan them. then I had the idea to make a group of androgynous figures of different colors emerging from the ground. the figures should not show in their bodies nothing that could resemble race, or genre. the colors should be regular ones, like red, green and yellow, for example, and not skin colors. the intention is not focus in a special subject. the concept was to remind that we all are equal for we all are born the same way as children of the Earth and we all will die the same way and come back to Her.

when I still don't have an idea about what I want to paint, I usually feed my mind with pictures, videos, and music. usually my search doesn't last too long. I'm very imaginative and sometimes just a single vision of patterns in the wings of a bird, beautiful draperies or an unusual sunset sky are enough to inspire me with colors and shapes. and when I want to put a group of figures in the picture, I first need to do some study until finding a good, harmonic composition. I go to my collection of reference pictures, open my Photoshop and start to pick pictures and position them until find a composition I really like. usually it's when the real job starts and when more ideas arise. sometimes, the next step is to transfer the image in a very rough sketch to my sketchbook and start creating. other times, when I have a clear idea of what I want, I go right to the illustration board. the image is still blurred in my mind, so I'd better do some studies first.

in the sketchbook things start to change. first, I suddenly realize that the intertwined figures look better with their breasts. the initial idea begins to crumble. second, I begin to see branches coming out the arms and hair. the group of figures is now a big tree.

ok, we can use a big tree to represent structure, for example. differences structure the world, make it a most interesting and rich place. but now the figures have a genre, they are women. I'm afraid that my initial idea is now getting more and more dissolved.

now I don't know what to do with a big tree which trunk is made of three women intertwined. but I love the idea, and I want to continue on. but it's no longer a project for the Embracing the Differences exhibit. it's something else I don't know what is.

the word came to my mind all of a sudden: Tree of Life.

eureka!! what could be more appropriate for a tree of life than a tree made of women? I was in awe. almost immediately I started to sketch the figures on the board, using 2H and HB pencils.

little branches coming from fingers...

this is why I say that many times our creations don't really belong to us. they seem to have a life of their own. no matter what we plan for them, in their way to completion they may end up turning out something totally different. we artists are just the channel.

I finished the penciling today, or at least what I call the "basics". at the end of the process I'll fix what I judge to be flaws and enhance the shadows using a softer pencil (usually 2B or even 4B, but nothing beyond that.)

now it's time for the fun to start. in the next step I'll create the abstractions and define the branches, leaves and the other elements I want the tree to have. I confess I am still not certain of what to put in the tree besides animals and birds. a Tree of Life is something big and deserves to be well thought about. let's see what kind of insight I'll be granted with in the next days.

anemonae

watercolor and pencil on watercolor paper,
12 x 8.5
2009
S100 USD

totem #2: moth

watercolor and pencil on watercolor paper,
12 x 8.5
2009
$100 USD

one painting a day (or almost)

and here I am, after 5 days of my mini vacation and disconnected from the internet. excepting for going to the movies, I didn't manage to conclude all my plans. think that time was still not enough. but at least half of my website is done, the quick paintings got started, and several pages of one of my books were avidly consumed. I also broke my dietary discipline (low-carbs, low-sugars) eating all the pies that were put in front of me, besides fresh and bold quesadillas.

I was actually inspired by the One Painting a Day concept to create those quick paintings. the idea is to paint one small piece a day, spending no longer than a few hours, what for some artists work as a challenge and an exercise. but in fact the big appeal of this concept is the possibility of selling paintings for small prices, attracting more collectors and people that cannot pay hundreds of dollars for an original piece of art. the perpetrator of the concept was the artist Duane Keiser, but nowadays lots of artists have successfully adhered to the idea.

well, I still don't know if I can complete one painting a day while having to work in my bigger pieces. I can't paint full time yet. but in my first attempt I managed to work on a couple 12 x 8.5 pieces simultaneously; I completed the penciling in one day, and the watercolor in another - excepting the details in one of the pieces - that ended up becoming one more Totem. not bad.

Anemonae + Totem #2

it's true that they are not very different from the first Totem and Flourish, as a reader recently observed. the difference is that, when I made those, I was still experimenting a new direction in painting and they took a few days to get completed. the new ones were supposed to be quick works. in the end, working on most simple pieces revealed fun and a refreshment from the complex concepts I usually develop. sometimes I just don't know how to work with the "simple" - my moon in Scorpio is always leading me to complicated paths. can't wait for more!

second panel finally in progress

I must confess I am proud of this one. :)











Ignis Aeris is the right panel of The Waterman triptych. it represents the elements Fire and Water, or the yang ones. the left panel will be called Terrae Aquae, and it will represent the ying elements Earth and Water.

I didn't intend to use too much symbolism in the side panels, since they are supposed to "frame" the main one, which I decided to call Unio Mystica (this is the very own you've been watching for a while, with the naked Christ.) the four elements are the base of the physical universe, or microcosm, where the Divine Spirit manifests.

in Ignis Aeris, the bottom figure is the Magician. this arcane represents the number One, the power of creation. his nature is pretty much Air/Fire, since he pursues the gifts of the intellect (Air) and of the power of will (Fire) combined. I wanted to represent him wearing the Nemean lion skin, like Hercules. Hercules is the epitome of hero, that guy who has the power of will, creativity, braveness and passion (all Fire qualities), as well as mental skills (Air) in enough quantity to be succeeded in his endeavors.

other symbols I used are the butterflies (for Air) and the phoenix ( for Fire, represented by the middle figure in a bird mask). all the gestures evoke spirituality and connection to the higher planes.

it was funny to notice, when I finished the sketch, that the group had gained a sort of a Bacchanalia aura. I think that the god Bacchus has a strong fire connection, with all that wine and ecstasy, not mentioning that his cult was also pretty wild and sexually indulgent... more Fire, impossible.

in progress: the waterman II

I finished the penciling, leaving some details for later, as usual. now it is ready for the first wash.