Entry #1

    Those of you who follow my art blogs know that so far, they have all been portraits of beloved dogs. I will be breaking out of my comfort zone with this one though, to paint Poco Rojo, a much loved llama who, after serving many years as Alan and Lavinia's herd sire, has recently gone to his final resting place. RIP Poco.

POCO ROJO

I was provided three photos of the handsome fellow and Lavinia's fave was the middle one. I agree it is a beautiful shot. In order to get details of his face, however, with her permission I opted to crop his face and stick with what I know best. He is wearing a halter in the photo which will be left out of the painting.

    

As is my usual practice with a new work, I spend several days to generally ruminate (pun intended) about my subject, and to consider what my patron wants and what my options are when it comes to things like final size, type of paper, pigment colours, etc.

   

 I am so pleased that the shop where I acquire my supplies, Iron Oxide, has recently relocated to within walking distance of my studio. This affords me the luxury of being spontaneous about picking up supplies and it lessens the whole timeline of a project when I do need to acquire something in the way of new colours or brushes.

    

Although I have a supply of Arches cold press watercolour paper, I decided to drop in Willow's new location to purchase some Arches hot press paper. Water colour pigments react completely different on the two types of paper and while I usually use cold press, I am seriously considering the hot press. This may change however once I get into the actual painting.

    

Lavinia is fine with a finished size of 10 x 12 inches. Eight by ten was a consideration, however, I want a little more of his body included in the painting--his stance is so regal.

My next step will be to sketch out the drawing, then prepare the paper which involves stretching and which is an over-night process. Lastly, I will decide on pigment colours. Meet you at my next post.

~C

    

Entry #2

    Welcome back. Well, I am never surprised when, after coming up with a plan, everything goes sideways! The 'plan' was to paint Poco as a close-up portrait but that has changed. After experimenting with pigments on the hot press paper I decided the paints would lend themselves well to a full body pose. Hot press is much better when it comes to fine details--like a tiny face!

    This is the sketch I will transfer to the paper. I can see immediately that because so much of Poco is white, I will require a background in order to make him stand out.

    Below is the first sketch I prepared. I may still get back to this one but it will be on cold press.

    Backgrounds are not my forté and I can spend an inordinate amount of time considering background style and colour. It will have to be done first so I will mask the edges of the white areas on Poco. The masking has to be absolutely dry before applying the wash (another over-night process). I have decided on Winsor Newton Olive Green as a background colour. It should look good with Poco's colours.

    As for Poco, I've opted to use Yellow Ochre, Burgundy Red Ochre (warm), Italian Deep Ochre (cool) and Burnt Sienna--all Daniel Smith pigments.

I am anxious to get started so once I make a bit of progress I will meet up with you at my next entry. Ciao for now.

~C

Entry #3

     Hi and welcome back. So, I have been working on the actual painting part of Poco for two weeks now. It is a slow process because a) it has been a couple of months since I have picked up a paint brush; b) still getting used to how pigments are reacting on the paper.

    Once the masking was removed I was able to put down the background wash and get started on Poco's face.

    The water colour process involves applying several layers of pigment which results in deep rich colours and a sense of depth.  His face at this stage requires lots of tweeking of details as well as some lifting of colour. There is a long way to go, so onward.

    Taking a break from the face now so that I can return to it with fresh eyes later. I have moved down to the hind legs. I will be using some greys in this area so prefer to blend my own greys with a mix of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. This way I can lean the gray more towards the browns in Poco's colouring. As is often the case, when I start in a new area I get disheartened because the first and second layers look so dismal. It requires a lot of positive self talk to get past that stage to a point where I can start to feel somewhat confident about the results. 

    Seeing the above image gives me a good perspective on the work so far and I can see areas that can be improved or changed. So that is what I will focus on for a while now. Ta ta for now.

~C

Entry #4

    From day to day my feelings about the work fluctuate like a yoyo--one minute I love it and the next I want to trash it. I am happy with Poco's face after returning to it and making tiny changes in details and colouring--the front legs, however, are causing me grief. I am not happy with them after trying to "fix" what I perceived as mistakes. The watercolour artist is in trouble once an area starts to get overworked and I fear that is the case. 

    In the photo above you can see the area of shadow on the front legs that I have been struggling with. It is so close to being completed and it is discouraging to have this issue so close to the end. My plan is to take a deep breath and step away from the work for a day or two. I'll then go back for a final "fix". 

Three days later...

It was good to physically and emotionally get away from this project. When I returned to it, I actually found that I forgot what I was obsessing about and spent the final hours making minuscule changes to Poco's face. A final exam after it had completely dried told me that it was finished. A final glint in the eye and...voila. 

Such a proud stance and Poco really did have a beautiful aura about him. I hope I have done him justice Lavinia.

~C