Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Painting Kirkside Park



Here's a quick video showing you a casein painting of a couple of old willows in a park. (Direct link to video)
I'm using a fuller palette here than usual: titanium white, ivory black, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, chromium oxide green deep, alizarin crimson, light red, golden ochre, and cadmium yellow light.

I also used a few touches of water-soluble colored pencils over the dry paint, with notes drawn in a fountain pen. I like this combination of painting and drawing materials because it's fast and you can get textures and effects that you can't get with drawing or painting media alone.
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Sign up for my pay-what-you-want live stream this Saturday in New York City at Concert Window Open.
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Here's the tech:
I was using Richeson / Shiva casein
1/4 inch flat brush 
Moleskine watercolor notebook
Caran D'Ache watercolor pencils
Waterman Phileas red fountain pen 
Camera: GoPro HD Hero rotating on a kitchen timer at 2 second intervals
Lots of info on casein at Richeson's FAQ about casein

9 comments:

Monika Baum said...

I hope by quickie you meant the duration of the video, not the time it took to do the sketch. Would shatter my hopes of doing daily watercolor sketches after work. Excellent as always! Thank you :-D

David Teter said...

Nice James.
I also like , there probably is a name for it, the photo and painting overlay at the end. This lets us see your interpretation of the scene better than any other method.

Are you reaching UNDER the arm extension for the video camera to paint this?

James Gurney said...

Monbaum, yes, I meant the video was a quickie.

David, the camera bar hooks around from the left and doesn't obstruct my view or my right hand. Also, I can fold it down out of the way if I'm not filming.

Gina Florio Sous said...

Hi James, I've just learned that I'm going to be out of the house (and away from my computer) during your livestream demo and Q&A session. Very disappointed as I was really looking forward to it! Will the session be available as a video after it airs?

jytte said...

Dear James
I think this link reminds me of one of your paintings :o-
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/maulleigh/2335424550/

Jim Scheel said...

James,

I love your blog and your videos! I really like your DIY pochade box. I watched the video with the cicada again to see how you built it.

I was wondering what did you use for the quick release tripod mount?

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hello James,

I love watching your videos and generally getting to see how other artists work. I draw a lot of trees and plants and I'd be curious to see how you handle things like bark and making different species of trees actually look different when they're around each other.

I look forward to more videos!

-Sam

Linda Navroth said...

I would love to see a longer version of this. I used to work in animation around the same era you did (I worked for Bakshi on Lord of the Rings), but I was a lowly cel painter. I wish I would have pushed harder to get into the background department--would have been better experience!

James Gurney said...

Thanks, Linda. Sometimes I just don't shoot much documentation of a painting in progress -- doing so can be a bit of a distraction -- so that's why there's no longer version. In answer to your question about the next video on painting in casein, I expect it should be out by the end of August or maybe September.