Renewal

The eagle is soaring, or is at least in my mind. After a near disaster with the Krylon fixative applied at too low a temperature, I was able to save my three weeks of work on this painting. I let a night pass and started rebuilding the color that was so dulled by the fixative. I had to completely redo the sky and clouds. I was not sure if it was going to work because it was very difficult to get the blue to cover evenly. I also decided to blend in a lighter Winsor & Newton, Cerulean Blue Hue at the bottom at the skyline, and a slightly darker Cerulean Blue at the top of the painting to give a more realistic color change in the sky. I gradually reworked the clouds and added a white edge to the final clouds that one sees when the sun highlights them.

Next on my rework list was the Bald Eagle since he is the focal point of this piece. I needed to completely rework the head, eyes and beak to bring it back into the correct intensity with the proper shading. Then I tackled the feathers beginning at the top and gradually working down to the tail feathers. I was fresh with a good night's sleep and so this phase went well. By afternoon, I was starting to relax and realize that my painting was recoverable, and if I was patient, I could make it even better. God works in mysterious ways, he stretches us and teaches us with each challenge if we just use the gifts He has given us with patience.

Once the Eagle looked regal and alive, it was time to begin work on the background. The whole mountain section and forest from the skyline to the bottom had been dulled, and much of the original shading I had painted in the piece was gone, and some parts even appeared to show the surface underneath as if the pastel had been pulled off and clumped. I worked each section slowly and carefully, from the mountain peaks to each valley, and gradually highlighted trees, and brought the piece back to life. The fall colors in the Black Oaks had been dulled, but once I finished touching up the color and adding additional shading, they looked more natural than before. When I was finally finished I stood back and re-examined my painting and realized that this was a good lesson, and definitely worthwhile one. The piece looked better than it had originally. Perhaps in my haste to get done, I had overlooked some details that make a difference. The need to carefully examine the damage to the various parts and restoration had made me more attentive. More sensitive to the effect of light and shadow.

Once I had carefully resigned my piece, I set my camera up in a well lighted room (Natural light from a skylight helped) and took several shots. I cropped it to size in PhotoShop and voila, the finished piece was ready for posting.  I hope you enjoy the finished piece I have entitled, "Where Eagles Soar."

An Artists Meltdown Over Use of Fixative!

There is nothing more frustrating after spending weeks of work on something really special to ruin it oneself through not thinking. I have been working on my largest pastel painting to date and have spent several weeks of intensive work on it to paint something very different and very special.

My younger brother Martin in Canada sent me a beautiful closeup picture of a Bald Eagle up in a tree some weeks ago. He was a regal looking creature, and one could understand the strength that flows from his eyes. They are gorgeous birds in flight, and an intelligent predator. I thought it would make a wonderful subject for a painting, but the photo was just the eagle on an old dead tree branch and a lot of sky around it. It needed a suitable background.

Three weeks ago Cindy and I went up in the mountains on one of our exploratory photo trips to see what we could find. We were having great fun exploring old stage coach roads, driving over old suspension bridges and roaming around on the back roads in the Sierras between Colfax and Forest Hill.  We were near the end of our journey when we turned off the highway that leads to Forest Hill to explore a dirt road that looked interesting. It had an interesting name also, "Chicken Hawk Road", and was probably given that namesake during the gold rush. The road took us right up to the top of the ridge over looking miles of forest land to the east. It was late in the day so I stopped a number of times and took photographs from several vantage points that looked promising, and they offered marvelous see forever views. Unfortunately there were no clouds at all in the sky to break up the beautiful blue. 

Once we got home and I had time to transfer my shots to the computer, I found one that would be a perfect backdrop for my eagle painting. I printed out an 8 X 10 as a reference photo and sketched out the scene I wanted. Then I sketched the eagle in the middle of the picture, making adjustments until I felt it was the right place. Once my rough sketch was in I could begin my painting.

I began by doing the background and filled in a rough of the eagle.  I gradually worked through the process over the weeks and redesigned the eagle because the perspective was off. Once he looked right, I continued with finishing the background. It was a long and tedious process with so many trees, and so much fall color on the mountains and valleys. The foreground presented a challenge, because it was going to be in the shade, and getting the right values was perplexing. I finally did the whole color scheme on the lower painting completely over until I was satisfied with the result. Now my painting was almost complete, but it lacked something.

I consulted with a knowledgeable artist friend, Toni Callahan and she gave me some good honest input as to what was missing. Feather detail, it needed more. My picture didn't show much detail so I went surfing on the web until I could find a good eagle photo in the same stance as the one I had. I found several and did find one with excellent feather detail. Once that detail was added, my painting came alive. I was so pleased to get it to this point and kept working the painting areas to see what needed tweaking a little more. 

I finished the painting this morning.  I had one more thing to do, and that was add a light blue haze over a portion of the mountains.  Before I could do that however; I needed to protect the existing pastel. with a fixative. Once the fixative dried, I could add a blue on a portion of the mountains to give them a hazy look and push them farther away. This had been a terrific challenge, I was so pleased with the end result.

I signed it, and took it out to the garage to spray. Once I had some covering over my bench I took out the Krylon fixative and sprayed the pastel with a back and forth motion giving no thought to how cold the can of Krylon was or how cold it was in the garage. Obviously the cold made the Krylon finish thicker, because the whole painting darkened considerably, and it appeared that it pulled pastel away from several areas.

I stopped the fixative but it was already too late. I quickly took the painting back into the warmer house in hopes that the fixative would dry and everything would be fine.  After several hours I went back to the easel and was horrified with what I saw. The painting was much darker and blander than before. I would have to redo the entire painting and re-shade the eagle because all of the highlights were muted and indistinguishable from the rest of the body. The sky was mottled and a darker blue. I could have screamed, but what good would that do?  Fortunately we were going out for Thanksgiving dinner and I would not have to look at it for a while. Maybe when I cooled down and gave it some time, I could get back to it.

We arrived home this evening and I surveyed the painting. It is as bad as I feared and will take a lot of work to fix, but I know I can do it. I have attached a picture of the painting that I took before the fixative was applied in the paragraphs above, and the second one is after the fixative darkened the painting, and flattened all the detail to the right of this paragraph. If you look closely, you can see the sky color I have tried to fix that is the lighter blue, and how much darker the fixative has made the sky and rest of the painting. Wish me patience, I have my work cut out for me!