I've finally finished my painting of the Radium Beer Hall (can you spot where I got the title for this post?) that I was about to embark on in a previous post last year - although I keep seeing things I want to fiddle with... I spent hours on that guy's face on the right and it still looks like a fuzzy jellybaby, and in two minds about the ghostly figure standing on the bar counter (Mary Fitzgerald, a trade union activist who actually did rally her troops from the very same counter, albeit in another establishment).Tim Quirke, our excellent teacher, has taken us step by step through a process of planning, drawing, leading the eye, thinking of this aspect and that artist, painting 'up' areas and leaving others understated. I kept taking pictures as I progressed - a little dangerous as sometimes you want to go back to a stage you've irretrievably wrecked - but a record for future reference. It has been painstaking at times, and thoroughly engrossing and free-flowing at others, but I've certainly learnt a lot and hope to put it all into practice in my own painting, or at least keep some of it in mind. Why didn't I find all these teachers when I started painting in oils 22 years ago? It would have saved a lot of trash-able canvases, maybe...though most artists have those no matter how much education they've had, from what I hear.
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4 comments:
I love seeing all the stages your painting went through! Thank you for sharing your process. . . it's like getting a tiny peak into your brain at work. And the result is marvelous!
- Tina
Thanks Tina, I'm glad you liked seeing the stages!
I enjoyed seeing the stages, too, and saw where you made subtle changes that made the painting better. I don’t think the second man looks like a jellybean - you don’t want him to have too much detail as he’s really on the edge of the painting. I like the changes in the table to the left that leads our eye into the painting, I like the various reflections. Have to admit, though, I thought the “ghostly figure” was a stencil on the window, not on the bar - it works that way for me, as a viewer...Radium BeerHall with Marie Curie on the window? Ha ha. Just my mind working things out. I like the painting and I know you’ve really soaked up the learning as you working towards the end. I hope you are happy with it!
Hi Rhonda, yes, I'm going to not look at it for a while before dabbing any more - I agree the 'ghost' could be on the window, or outside looking in the window. I'm pretty happy with solving a lot of the problems in a complex painting - I would prefer a simpler image altogether, but a good learning curve!
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