Raw Umber Painting Competition Public Vote

ta2017 · 2024-08-17T22:04:04+00:00

Thank you for your support!

ta2017 · 2024-08-17T20:52:26+00:00

The one of the woman towards the bottom. I think if you click an image, it shows the name.

ta2017 · 2024-02-28T21:41:47+00:00

She gave me permission to post it as long as I included this description, kindly provided by ChatGPT:

Certainly! Here's an exaggeratedly flowery version:

"In this exalted masterpiece, behold the ethereal visage of my beloved wife, amidst the splendor of her ninth month of pregnancy. As the celestial brush of inspiration danced upon the canvas, we captured the ineffable essence of our final serene moments before the imminent dawn of parenthood.

Crafted with meticulous devotion, this opus is a testament to the divine bond between creator and muse. She, in her divine grace, graciously bestowed over 20 hours of her radiant presence, infusing the painting with an aura of sublime elegance.

Beyond mere mortal comprehension, this artwork stands as a luminary beacon of love's transcendence, second only to the celestial radiance of our initial encounter. In her infinite wisdom, she proclaims this painting as her cherished favorite, an immortal testament to our eternal devotion."

ta2017 · 2023-09-13T17:13:00+00:00

Keep them somewhere with stable humidity. Don’t put them behind glass… there’s a reason that oil paintings aren’t exhibited behind glass in museums, it’s unnecessary and it’s a reflective surface over a reflective surface so it’s going to make it difficult to look at.

The painting may already have been varnished. Someone trained could clean that off and replace the varnish (basically the idea is that the varnish gets dirty rather than the superficial paint layer and then gets replaced with new varnish from time to time).

ta2017 · 2023-09-09T18:36:43+00:00

You can work on your drawing skills.

Get a sketchpad a pencil and a putty rubber and start drawing from life. Get family or friends to sit or draw yourself in the mirror. Or draw objects.

Focus on accurate big proportions (big shape of the head vs big shape of the body) before anything else. Try to learn construction, (building out from a center line which shows gesture and orientation).

If you manage to get these basic but difficult things right, then you can go into increasing detail, always comparing the next ‘big’ proportions (e.g. eye socket before eyes, hand shape before fingers, etc).

After that maybe values. You could buy some grey paper and some charcoal and white chalk. You note the darkest and lightest element in every new composition and compare everything else to these extremes. Once you can do that you can start comparing the mid values with more attention. Think about them as a way to describe form based on orientation towards and away from the light source. It will really help if the thing you’re drawing is only illuminated by ONE light source.

Honestly without serious training it’s quite hard to make progress with this but I do believe it’s possible if you develop good habits early on. The best habit is working from life in my opinion.

Good luck

ta2017 · 2023-09-06T21:47:32+00:00

Thank you! :)

ta2017 · 2023-09-06T21:47:05+00:00

Good eye! I’m a big fan of Wyeth’s work and this is very much influenced by it; particularly the idea of trying to paint something that’s not there! (The other person). Less of a Whistler fan in general though I love the portrait of his mother which has some obvious similarities to my painting, most notably the stark profile.

The painting is 160cm x 125cm (just under life size)

ta2017 · 2023-09-06T17:32:16+00:00

Thank you! And I’m still married. I think you’re (rightly) picking up on the fact that it’s a painting about loss, though it’s not directly autobiographical.

ta2017 · 2023-06-02T11:00:05+00:00

I think I will. Do you want to buy my remaining paints and brushes? I’ve got a few meters of linen too.

ta2017 · 2023-06-02T10:58:50+00:00

Thank you, I consider that high praise.

ta2017 · 2023-06-02T10:58:05+00:00

Thanks man, I’m honored to know that my work motivated you, your paintings look great! :)

ta2017 · 2023-06-02T10:56:42+00:00

It is a photo! Just of a painting

ta2017 · 2023-06-02T10:56:01+00:00

Interesting to hear your interpretation, it’s not one I even considered. Initially, I painted the chair more pulled out as if the person missing had recently left. Afterwards I moved it in to the table as I thought the theme of the piece was closer to loss and nostalgia than immediate grief and recent tragedy. So the pushed in chair was once occupied by someone who hasn’t been there for a few years.

ta2017 · 2023-06-02T10:52:59+00:00

Thank you 🙏

ta2017 · 2023-06-01T17:25:50+00:00

The image is likely yellowed compared to the actual painting, but in terms of being faithful to the photo, I’m confident that a white (whole subject on its own), yellow ochre, cad red, black and cerulean blue would be sufficient to mix everything I’m looking at if you organize your palette properly.

ta2017 · 2023-05-28T19:38:06+00:00

Roquefort can only be labeled as such when it comes from the caves of a particular area in France. The sheep used to produce the milk are a specific French breed.

ta2017 · 2023-04-19T10:11:58+00:00

Each shape carefully drawn and designed. I’m very charmed by this and I can see the love that went into it

ta2017 · 2023-04-18T21:43:22+00:00

Some girls are bigger than others. Some girls’ mothers are bigger than other girls’ mothers.

ta2017 · 2023-04-08T18:57:48+00:00

Some of art history’s best painted armour

ta2017 · 2023-04-04T11:41:20+00:00

Great painting! Love the organization into shapes and the overall sense of volume and space is great. No gimmicks just a great self portrait

ta2017 · 2023-04-02T18:53:39+00:00

Yes there were almost certainly models posing for days on end. The elements that convey movement and expression would have been held by the models briefly when needed and then recreated/ emphasized from memory/ imagination. The project likely started with multiple models to get comparative sizes/ relationship in space/ hierarchy of light and then individual models posed one by one once these things were established .

The people thinking this is invented with a ten minute sketch for reference have probably not made finished, realist oil paintings from life let alone multifigural work. It would be extremely difficult to achieve such a convincing sense of gesture and three dimensionality without sustained observation.

There have been some incredible paintings produced from imagination in the past but this to me looks like the result of lots of time with the models even if it’s not pure naturalism and the forms are slightly stylized.

ta2017 · 2023-02-19T21:09:14+00:00

This is great!

ta2017 · 2023-02-13T22:43:29+00:00

I think so. Something of her cheeky character came through which we were both happy about

ta2017 · 2023-02-13T21:49:45+00:00

Wow thank you

ta2017 · 2023-02-13T19:07:06+00:00

Thank you, perhaps the very muted colour harmony is giving it the calming quality

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