New Commission Piece

 

Back in July/August I met a nice lady that ended up commissioning me to do a new piece for her interior design client. I was honored! Immediately I built the wood panel from scratch. I have been tackling with paint little by little every week. I am taking this one a bit slower so that I can focus. I chose not to use drying medium this time so the paint is taking forever to dry! So long, in fact, that I am way over due! I feel awful! I really under estimated the timeline on this one... 

So even though I am farther along than these photos represent above, I thought it would be fun to post the in progress work from the beginning. Meanwhile, my painting is drying. Tomorrow I will continue to work on it and in the end I will probably throw together a slide show about it.

Kind of an extra bonus for the client to be able to see the birth of their new artwork! 

These beginning stages are very important to me. I wash in my darker undertone. This time I used my famous "Saparindian" concoction with raw umber and quinacridone gold. Then I literally wipe out all my white areas to reveal the shapes of the long twisted tree branches. So I rely heavily on my ability to see negative and positive shapes, adding and subtracting paint as I go. 

This wipe out method is a great way to "sketch" in oil... once it is dry, color is the next step.