Ruth

The last framed painting that I will be taking to Illuxcon, this is a portrait of the lovely Ruth Schechner in my "gold" style as suggested by Pat Wilshire, co-organiser of the event. Due to the use of gold paint and the limitations of my camera in terms of handling colour this is the best I can do as an image to post on the blog and Facebook. I wanted the figure to be set against an intense red background which I managed to get by roughly painting layers of transparent red oil over a dark burgundy acrylic wash, managing to get a bit of texture to it which is what I wanted - I didn't want a flat red background. 
I was originally going to drop bronze powders onto wet paint to get the metallic surface designs but opted instead to mix the powders into thinned oil paint or Liquin, a fair amount of control to produce different levels of shine was afforded by varying the amount of paint to powder. An early decision was made to have a flowing black shape running through the dress and somehow continuing onto the hair above as I wanted a link from the dress to the figure; all other shapes (I had opted to have all curves for the patterning) were added spontaneously around it as I went along. I would have liked an extra day on this but due to the fast approaching deadlines for framing and packing I have to leave it as it is, I have put an oil radiator next to it to make sure that it is dry for tomorrow so that I can get it scanned/photographed asap. Oil and bronze powders on canvas 11 3/4" x 31 1/2". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in earlier posts on this blog.

Ruth - stage 7

Finished the dress barring any last-minute tweaks so I got on with the face today, trying to get that sassy expression as she looks down towards the viewer. I think I will knock back the gold curve in the hair to a much more orange gold.....or even paint it out.

Ruth - stage 6

Nearly finished the decoration on the dress and now starting to think about the face and arms so I have started to build up the red background in transparent glazes to give me an idea about the colour and values for the flesh. Also painted the hair area darker for the same reasons.

Ruth - stage 5

Today I painted some more of the gold dress area this time getting some more three-dimensional effects by putting on blobs of gold paint that will hopefully remain above the picture surface when dry. I also painted a semi-transparent glaze of a darker red all over the background and am pleased to see that a certain amount of texture remains visible.

Ruth - stage 4

I have started to mix up richer metallics now and use them on the background patterning as well as putting in the major curves in a brighter gold.

"Approaching The Citadel" sold

I am very pleased to report that Pat and Jeannie Wilshire have just bought "Approaching The Citadel" prior to it being shown at Illuxcon. I wish that I had done more paintings with this kind of mood and lighting, I think I'm on to something here.......thank you Pat and Jeannie!

Ruth - stage 3

I made a start today in getting some basic shapes into the dress including just one black line to run through it and out of the figure to emerge as a gold line over the hair - I want a link between the figure and background. I have been experimenting with mixing the bronze powders with oil paint and/or Liquin as it produces a richer metallic lustre than conventional gold oil paint and one can easily control the colour and lustre by varying the quantities of powder to paint.