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!
Hi Paul - Sorry to read about the painting, but one thing I would ask you. Did you use your usual Senellier La Carte paper? If so, I have just found out that this paper is what used to be Royal Sovereign, the paper I used in all of my earlier pastels. The one thing I was told when I first used it was that this didn't need fixing because of the holding properties of the tooth. I took this advice and have never used fixative on any of the paintings. Several of them have been framed and on the walls for 10 or 12 years now, and there is not a scrap of dust or pastel on the mounts even now. It was one of the things I loved most about RS. I have now bought some Senellier and have just posted my first painting with it on Flickr, and can confirm that it is definitely the old RS.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that this doesn't help you now, but it might be food for thought. I hope that you are not offended by me writing this, and I am sure that you know what you are doing. I just thought that perhaps my experiences with the paper might be of interest.
Ian.
Hello Ian; Thank you for the nice comment my friend. I am not offended at all, and wouldn't be when someone is giving me good information. Actually the paper I used is a brand new pastel surface on the market called Rtistix, made by a newly formed company in Texas. An artist, who is also a roofer, designed the paper mounted on a sturdy board. I bought three boards of it to try it out. Two 16 X 20 and one 18 X 24" which is the one I just used. I really like this board, it has an excellent tooth, but is a bit pricey. The 18 X 24 was 17.00 and the 16 X 20's were 13.50 each. I will definitely use it again though because one can use a watercolor wash on it first as a base for pastel.
ReplyDeleteI also like the La Carte paper by Sennelier, and it has an excellent tooth, but you cannot let it get the slightest bit damp because the vegetable tooth will slough right off. The good news of course is that I managed to fix all the damage and brighten it back up and framed it without any more fixative!
Hi Paul
ReplyDeleteExcellent news that you have restored the painting. It is beautiful, and I'm sure that your son will be thrilled with it! Yes, I found out by accident that you couldn't get the RS/Senellier paper wet, but it is a fantastic paper, and very reasonably priced.
Thoroughly enjoying your blogs, Paul, they are very interesting. Keep up the good work.
Kind regards,
Ian.