Elephant Painting - Finished

So I said on Tuesday that I'd probably finish the painting in the next session. Well, it looks like I was right. Here it is - signed, dated and finished: -

I have to be honest and say that I'm pretty satisfied with what I've done here. Up to now I've only ever been pleased with my horses when it comes to animals. A couple of years ago I painted a camel and a stag and to be honest I didn't think that much of either painting. But this is pretty close to what I wanted to achieve - the whole point when I started sketching onto the canvas was to try to get across the monumentality of an African elephant, and I'm happy that I've done that to the best of my ability.

Negative points? Well, looking objectively I think that the head is just a little too wide. However I am pleased with the use of shade and shadow on the body. I'm really pleased with the foliage as well. If you've been following the progress of this painting you'll know that just the foliage alone took hours. Here's a comparison between the painting with just the foliage and a hardly painted in elephant outline, and the finished painting: -

Elephant Update: Supplementary

I managed to sneak in another hour or so's session this evening. I cracked on with the rear leg and the body, so much so that there's relatively little left to do, and I'd say that I'm likely to finish next session. Here's the latest: -

Elephant Update 4

Here's where we finished yesterday:-

So my priorities for this morning were to finish the right ear, and the right foreleg. Here's my progress photo after 1 hour:-

It doesn't look as if I achieved a great deal in that first hour, does it? Well, let's be fair, you can spend a lot of time just thinking and working a plan of attack in a first hour, and if it pays dividends then it's time well spent in my opinion. You can see that I have actually done quite a bit more work on the right ear, and started painting my way down the foreleg.  This is next photo is after about another half an hour:-

The leg looks a lot better now, and has joined nicely with the foot which I actually painted in a couple of days ago - still not as disciplined as I could be in my approach, I'm afraid. By this stage I'd made up my mind that the trunk needs quite a bit more work, but I've decided to leave that until all of the legs and body are painted in. So this last photo is at the end of the session, after almost three hours in total.

The biggest development between this last phot and the previous is that there's been some work done on the body. So we really should be seeing now what the finished painting will look like.

Elephant Update 3

Despite being a bank holiday today I've only managed to put a couple of hours into the elephant. Here's where we got to yesterday:-

So, today's plan, if it can be dignified with so grand a title, was to continue to work on the head and trunk. Here's the mid session photo: -

I added a thin layer of colour to the rest of the head and ears, more wrinkles on the trunk, and some of the shadows on the forehead. I think that we're pretty much at the stage with this where I can just start to get an idea of what the finished painting is going to look like. Here's where I was when my daughter and son in law called round and I adjourned to take my youngest grandson to the local park.

I'm not saying that I've finished with the trunk yet, but it makes a hell of a difference having completed it as far as I have done. Both ears need more work, and I should think that's what I'll concentrate on for the next session is finishing both ears before I move onto the body and the legs.

Elephant Update 2

So today I found about 3 hours all told in two sessions. Here's the interim photo:-

I couldn't resist doing the end of the trunk to start with. Well, also, there is a hell of a lot of work to do with the trunk. There's an absolute UK road network map of wrinkles on it, and it's not going to be done in one or even a couple of sessions. So I decided to start working on it, and do a little bit each session until I'm finished. Then I started to build up layers on the left foreleg, which is mostly in shadow. I wanted to test out colours for the feet, too, and I'm not unhappy with what I achieved on the foot that I've painted in.

Well, I have said in previous posts that I've been trying to be more methodical, but the fact is that old habits die hard, and I couldn't resist starting on the head.This is where I am now at the end of Sunday's sessions:-

You can see the wrinkles I've painted in one ht etrunk, and so at least I now feel I have a way of getting to grips with them. It's going to take some time, mind you, but we're off and running at least.

Elephant Update

Right, so let me tell you where I am now. It’s been a funny old week, one way and another. So since I last posted on Friday I’ve put a few sessions into the elephant painting. You’ll recall that last Wednesday I made a start on the background. Well, last weekend I put in a few hours on Saturday, and a few more on Sunday, and I really felt I was starting to get somewhere, as you can see by the photographs.

 I’ll be honest, I’ve never particularly enjoyed painting foliage. There might be a way to cheat and do it quickly, but I don’t know how. It’s an awful lot of work, but nonetheless, I’ve stuck to my guns and my resolution in the last few paintings to do the background first.

About half past two on Sunday afternoon I had a phone call from my first born. Basically she had woken in the wee small hours with a terrible headache, and been throwing up intermittently ever since. She couldn’t even keep any liquids down. She’d rung the NHS out of hours service, who told her in no uncertain terms to get to A and E. When she told me this I downed tools.

To cut a long story slightly shorter, she was admitted with suspected meningitis. A lumbar puncture and blood test later, this was ruled out, and feeling better she was allowed home on Monday. In the interim I’d left her at the hospital and returned home on Sunday evening, stopping to pick my grandson up from his Dad. As I was driving home I felt worse and worse, and as soon as I put Ollie to bed, I started throwing up. I got one of my other daughters to take him to school the next day, and rang in sick. By Monday evening the nausea had receded, but I did nothing more with the painting other than cleaning up a bit after the Sunday session which I’d left in a hurry.

Come Tuesday morning, I woke up, my stomach felt a little tender, but not queasy, and I got out of bed. Or tried to. It was something I’ve never really experienced before. It was as if my body had become drunk. My balance had gone completely, and I toppled from one side to the other. To an onlooker it might well have looked quite funny. To me it was frightening. I shuffled downstairs on my bottom, rang work, and settled down for another long day on the sofa.

Thankfully it passed during Tuesday evening, and I was back in work yesterday. We’ve all got over our sickness, I think.

Wednesday evening, then, was Artist’s Group. This is where I’ve got to. 

I’m not saying that I won’t do anything more to the background before the painting is finished – the tree trunks on the bottom right could still do with work, I think, and I want to give more definition to the sandy area between the grey road and the foliage. However, considering my usual inept attempts to paint foliage I’m not at all unhappy with this at the moment. Painting in the elephant now, especially all of those prominent wrinkles – now that is really going to be the tricky bit. Time spent so far – about 8 hours.

As a bit of a postscript, we had to take a couple of hard decisions in Artists’ Group last night. Put in simple terms, we’ve lost a couple of members over the last year or so. However the price of hiring the room has risen in the same period. We took the difficult decision last night that from now on we are only going to meet once a fortnight, until such time as we find a couple of new members. It’s sad, but at least we’re keeping going by hook or by crook, so there is always the chance we can entice a few more people in. I’d be heartbroken if we folded completely.

Latest Project : Elephant

Yes, dearly beloved, it’s time to update you on my next project, and once again we’re making an acrylic painting.

For this next acrylic painting I considered going back to old favourites – more horses, more trams, more steam engines – but then two of my last three canvases have been horses. In the past I tried painting other animals – a camel and a stag, with frankly disappointing results. Still, emboldened by the success of my recent plough horses painting I wanted to give another go. This time I wanted to make a picture, still using a 20 x 16 board, where I would get across something of the size, power and majesty of the creature. Hence I settled on this.

Yes, an elephant. Now if you look at this first photo you’ll see that I’ve hardly sketched in more than the outline. On the Shrewsbury poster I found that I needed to sketch in many more lines, but the graphite always gives trouble if you’re painting a light colour over it, so I wanted to keep that to a minimum. It only took about 20 minutes to make this sketch onto the canvas.

There’s an excellent word in Welsh – hwyl. There’s no exact English equivalent, but it kind of means the heart, the spirit to get up and do something. Well, I didn’t have the hwyl to do any more on the picture until Artists’ group last night. I had, though, worked out a plan of attack. Now, I ask you to please remember that I’ve never had any formal lessons or training in Art – not since I was 13 anyway, and that was only at school. So if what I’m about to write seems stupid or goes against accepted best practice, well, that’s probably the reason why.

In the past I’d often start and paint the really enjoyable ‘bit’ first. So on “The Home Straight” – my first acrylic horse racing painting – I painted in the main horse and jockey first before even sketching in the background. Come to think of it, I was still working this way towards the end of last year when I made “London Tram on Highgate Hill”. In the cause of better results, though, I’ve tried hard to be more disciplined. On all 3 of this year’s acrylics I’ve painted in the background first. Being right handed I usually work from left to right, so that I don’t end up dragging my hand over freshly painted areas of the picture. 

Last night, then, I painted a layer of yellow, greatly lightened with white, where the foliage will be. The idea behind this is that it would allow me to let the yellow come through in areas where the sun was dappling the foliage. This didn’t take very long. Assessing my options, I decided that for once I was going to start on the right hand side. Experience told me that it was highly unlikely I would finish working on the foliage in this area before the end of the session, and then the paint would easily dry before the next time I go to paint.

I don’t know how well it shows on the photograph but I’ve actually used four different hues of sap green. The darkest is just the basic sap green. This also formed the base for the other green hues, achieved by adding different amounts of gamboge yellow, white and/or burnt umber. It took a long time to build up the various layers, but I’m not desperately unhappy with it. I wanted the trunks of the trees on the right to have a slight pinkish hue, but they’re just not right as they are, and I’m going to have to put a bit of thought into how I’m going to rescue them.

Towards the end of the session I did weaken a little, and just couldn’t resist painting in the elephant’s tusks. I finished by putting in a layer of white where the twig-like branches of the trees go through the foliage.  

Update – 17/05/19 – 21:34

I didn’t get a chance to work on the painting yesterday, but the plan for tonight’s session was to add a little colour to the white branches. I also wanted to start painting in the foliage to the far left and start laying down some layers of colour beneath the foliage. Well, I did some of that. First of all I painted in more of the base layer of light yellow underneath where the foliage was going. Then I started painting in more of the greens above the right hand tusk, working from light to dark.

I did try to do more work on the branches and on the tree trunks, which aren’t quite as pink as they were now. You can see in the last photo, which I took at the end of tonight’s session. I’ve painted a first layer of colour for the verge and the roadway at the bottom of the picture. I also put in the foliage between the elephant’s legs. It’s too early yet to have a view how the painting is going to turn out, but I’m pleased with the way that the tusk on the right stands out from the background now. 

Railway Poster

Okay - so on Sunday when I finished my session the picture looked like this: -

Monday, being Bank Holiday, was a perfect opportunity to push on. Here's one photo taken in the middle of Sunday's session:-

You can see that as well as starting on the third section of the building working from the left, I've also put in some of the shadows on the graound floor. They look black, but I promise you there is no 'neat' black anywhere in the painting, I've only used black to darken blues and browns. By the end of Sunday's session I'd got this far:-

You can see that I've pretty much finished work on the third section of the building, and I've painted in a base layer of a very watery brown on the building on the far right in the background. The idea was to get the picture to the point where I could finish it tonight at Artist's group. However, there was still quite a lot to do. So did I finish? Well: -

I was very pleasantly surprised with how quickly I could paint in the rest of the main building. Then painting over the background building with burnt umber seemed to work very nicely, and it was relatively easy to paint in the windows. Then it was figures, the darker pavement in the shadow of the background buuilding, and a final layer of yellow ochre on the slanting pavement on the extreme right. Voila. 

Railway Poster

This is where I stopped yesterday:-

- and this is where I finished today: -

Getting on now. I do want to work on the buildings to the right, as they are slanting in wards, and need a little remedial work as I begin to paint them in.

Latest Project Railway Poster

If I show you three photos you should be able to see quite clearly what I've done today:-

 The first thing I did was to paint the remaining roofs with a base layer of burnt umber. I also painted in the window on the top floor far left. From there I painted the rest of the building on the far left. My camera has the effect of bending an image, so you can't really tell from the phot, but I'm really pleased with how the border on the left hand side has come out now.

I love it when you get to this stage of a painting and there's enough detail there to give you an idea of what the finished painting may just look like, even though it's still hours and hours away from completion. So by the time I finished today's sessions, I'd painted the second building down to halfway, and also painted in the rest of the roadway in yellow ochre. I've also gone over the lettering of the word Shrewsbury with crimson, since it was very streaky with just one layer of paint. 

Latest Project - Railway Poster

My wife has asked me to make a replica of a 1930s style railway poster. She gave me a choice of three, and the one which won hands down for me advertised historic Shrewsbury.

Here's the preliminary sketch onto canvas.

You'll notice that I didn't sketch in much more than the lettering, the border and the outline of the buildings. The point was that this was all I wanted to do before I painted in the cream background colour, although I did use an ink pen to write in the black lettering. The idea was that these would show through a couple of layers of the background paint, and then I could go over them again. Here's the picture after my first painting session:-

I was quite happy with the cream background, but not so happy with the border. I like the darker crimson lettering of the word Shrewsbury, but there's only one layer of paint on them at the moment, and so they are rather streaky. The plan is that I'll apply at least one other layer to the letters as one of the last touches.

My plan was to tidy up the outer edge of the border on Wednesday in the artists' group session. However, I arrived to find I'd left a couple of important pieces of painting equipment behind me. So I used the time to sketch in as much detail on the buildings as I needed.

There was so little of the session left by the time I'd finished sketching in the buildings that there wasn't any point going back to fetch equipment, so I finished the session a little early.

So in tonight's session I began by painting the outer edges of the border a lot more carefully, First of all I did a little remedial work with white paint, and when this was dry it made a good base for overpainting with the same cream as the background. Once I was happy - or happier - with the border, then I began to paint in the buildings, firstly some of the lighter cream and then some of the roofs , shadows and wooden beams. This is where I am with the painting now.

Allowing for the way my camera tends to bend images slightly, you should be able to see the border at least looks a lot tidier now.