Grace Pennington

Road trips.  Done a few of those these past few months.  During our honeymoon we traveled from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Grand Canyon and Sedona Arizona.  Two weeks ago John and I drove out to Missouri to photograph our friend’s wedding.   Aside from being contained in a speeding box of death for several hours on end till the next rest stop, traveling in general has always been my biggest time for inspiration and thought.  I noticed the pattern after the last trip left me with more ideas for my portfolio projects.  This is exciting for me for one reason.  I’m learning how my creative juices start to flow.  Not when I’m  painting.  Not when I’m lying in bed at night.  Not when I’m taking a walk or relaxing by the pool, but when I’m driving (or riding in a car).

Through my ideas, I decided that my focus is going to be my portfolio.  How is that new?  Well, I’m stepping away from the commission side of things and my focus is not going to be on  making money, but making excellent art.   I think when staying within the “rules” of portraiture and “representational art,” I’m pretty good.  But what about making something excellent?  Having a body of work that is completely created from my little brain and hands versus the customer’s wishes and wants is kind of bazaar for me.  It hasn’t been apart of the creative routine as much.  At that point you’re not accountable to clients, but to yourself.

Seems like an exciting trip.  Do I have what it takes to last the journey?

Lately, I’ve been doing some reading about Michelangelo.  Apart from being one or the world’s greatest genius artist -as a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, poet- and  other than his immense sense of detail, form, figures, proportion, anatomy, composition, lighting, structure, and deep meaning behind each work, what else can we learn from Michelangelo?

I’d like to draw your attention to his innate sense of materials.  He was such a perfectionist, and that started with his materials.  He would spend 6 to 8 months in the quarries picking out the perfect pieces of marble before he started any of sculpting.   Could you imagine spending almost a year before you even start the art application process!  You’re just trying to get the materials.  The right materials.

He especially learned how important  the right materials are when he was working on a sculpture and a black vein came through across the face of  the Rebellious Slave.   From that he realized that the marble slab he picked wasn’t large enough to work with and far from perfect.  Usually he would carve and carve to mold the form, but with the slave, he ran out of room. What he learned from this he also applied to all of the huge projects he undertook later on, like the Tomb of Pope Julius II.

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Here is the long awaited photo of progress on the current oil portrait in process.  It’s just a close up.  (The whole painting will be revealed once it is complete.) Spencer is painted with grisaille gray underpainting.  I changed some of his facial structure some. He looks older.  He’s going to change so much as I add more layers and sculpt his face. Sculpture with paint.  Haha.  Also what you see there is the application of the 2nd layer which is the first layer of color.  His hair has the complete second layer.  One thing I’m being a little to cautious of is that I’m afraid to add too much color and what that is doing is making him look very pale.  He looks washed out and almost dead at the current with the full 2nd layer of color.   Kind of creepy.  The gray undertone is coming through really well.  I need to kick up the color.  But I’ll talk more about that later when I can actually show you what I’m talking about.

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Have you heard about this?  If you haven’t, here is your opportunity to get in on it.  The Future Generation Art Prize is for all artists ages 18 through 35.  You can submit any medium of art.  The contest is founded by Victor Pinchuk who is also founder of the Pinchuk Art Centre, one of the largest contemporary art centers in Eastern Europe.  Along with it, are mentors Damien Hirst from the UK, Jeff Koons from the USA,  Andrea Gursky from Germany, and Takashi Murakami from Japan.  20 young artists will be selected for an exhibition in Kiev, Ukraine.  The grand prize…well, you’ll have to check it out for yourself. Oh, by the way, there’s also five special artist awards as well.  Hope you participate!
Are you excited or what?  Show me your feelings and comment.
Peace of cake.

Grace

I talked about Pennington Studio’s current project, Spencer and Shania, on the PS blog.  Read up about it here and comment.

When it comes to the painting process.  We made the canvas 46″ x 38″.  I put eight layers of Golden Sandable Hard Gesso and two layers of Winsor & Newton Oil Primer.  The sandable gesso allows me to smooth the gesso and prepare for even layers of oil primer.  Oil primer helps the oil paint adhere better to the canvas which gives  smoother, thicker layers of oil paint as it builds up.

Once the canvas is dry and complete, the first step to painting is the drawing.  Every painting (or portrait if you will) starts with a good drawing.  Don’t ever draw in pencil.  The graphite will over time come to the surface of your oil paint and show through.  Use colored pencil instead.  The pigment from the pencil becomes one with the paint.

The next step for the underpainting, I’m doing a combination.  I’m going to give the horse a burnt umber wash and the boy will have grisaille grey underpainting. Next week I will post the progression of the painting, and you can watch the progression.  Slow as it may be, the beginning is the most important.  The better the start, the easier the finish. No do-overs.  That’s the goal, at least for this painting.

Keep painting.