and now begins the long, tedious process of what i call establish, obscure, re-iterate, obscure, re-iterate, obscure, re-iterate, obscure, ad nauseum. the only way to get a drawing to look like a painting is to paint the shit out of it. no, i should say that’s the only way for ME to do it. i see lots of amazing painters accomplish it with economic approaches, but for me, it never looks like it’s coming alive unless there are layers and layers of give and take. so in the beginning i just start giving darks to the dark areas, and taking away from stuff what i want to be lighter (by painting over it semi-opaquely).

i’ll start to introduce a bit of colour at this point, but nothing literal. still sort of just pushing things a degree toward where they might end up. all the while i’m still trying to keep a messy colour mesh happening. so that nothing is ever “a colour” but rather a mess of hues. i’ll start to draw over the underdrawing with opaque colours so that things are not as clear and “drawingy”. still thinking of it all as a foundation for the real work to come.

next week, more of the same, ha ha! (not sure if i should start condensing entries during this long middle period. what do you think? long and detailed, or more concise? leave me a comment with your preference!)

now that the drawing has been transferred onto canvas, i just cover the whole thing with a slop of rusty red. you can use any colour you like for this, the trick is just to make sure it’s sufficiently transparent that you don’t totally obscure the drawing. i often use a colour that is the opposite of what most of the painting will end up being– so in this case, a red ground for a largely green painting. i learned that trick from my friend Leila who would paint an entire painting in exact opposites first, then re-paint the whole thing in the final colours. so for a red shirt, she’d paint it green first, then later paint it red. the result is a really great luminescence and sort of twinkly, alive feeling to the painting because you get a bit of the compliment of peaking though. it’s almost like an optical illusion that confuses the eye. it’s much like the opalescence you see on the inside of a oyster shell. i’m way too lazy to do it as meticulously as Leila, but i’m going for the same end result.
so with this first assault on the canvas, just broad applications of reds and greens. it looks awful and gutless, but it makes for a great foundation on which to build.

here you see the reds/greens (or warms/cools) starting to build a sloppy kind of colour mesh. i’m adding really moderate lights and darks with the greens and leaving the mids as is. maybe a couple very obvious white highlights- just to trick myself into feeling like i’m making more progress than i really am. they’ll all eventually get more or less painted over, and then replaced later.

next time i re-inforce a lot of what was shown here, gradually building up contrast and texture, and beginning to introduce some colour.