Grace Pennington

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.

© 2009 Grace Kettell. All rights reserved.

Yesterday, I talked a little about pastel pencils.  Now I’m going to take the time and talk a little about the pastel paper that I use.

Wallis Sanded Pastel paper is the first brand that I used professionally for my pastel portraits.  It was great.  I could achieve the smooth quality that I like in the painting.   Of course I reordered it.  After several frustrating pieces it came to my attention that the paper wasn’t responding the same.  It was taking me longer to get the smooth finish that was crucial, and the pastel would not adhere well to the surface.  I was referred to Uart paper by a fellow artist.  The papers have different grain volumes that make a rough or smooth surface. 400, 500, 600, 800 — my favorite being the 600.  Easier to blend with a good amount of grip.

Check them out and give the paper a try.  Let me know which papers are your favorites and why.

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Pastels

The pastels I work in are the soft pastel encased in wood, forming the pastel pencil. Using a variety of brands – Derwent, CarbOthello, Conté, Faber-Castell, and Cretacolor – I get many different colors, which saves time with less layering. Although, I still have to work with what feels like a gagillion layers. So, minus a gagillion layers of just mixing and trying to find the right color match still equals a gagillion layers left of achieving the correct perception of depth. Phew! Ok, maybe not a “gagillion,” but is still a lengthy process making the larger pastel paintings take possibly months to complete. Because of the messiness that always accompanies pastels, I work from left to right almost completing the sections as I go. With all of the colors that I’m constantly pulling up, there are always at least 10 pastel pencils between my left hand fingers as well as a pile of the pastels in a tray connected to the easel for quick access.

Following is the progression of one of the pastels that exhibits extensive layering. Again, no stenciling, no grids, no projectors. Take note — these are just 9 stages. They’re not actually the amount of layers that are applied.

Stage 1:

A light sketch in a similar color that of the helmet. No detail. Just a map to figure location and position of the different parts.

Helmet Progress #1 © 2008 Grace Kettell. All rights reserved.

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