At Their Mother's Feet- Unveiled

At Their Mother's Feet- mixed media on panel 24" x 30" by Greg Newbold

A few posts back I gave a sneak peek of this painting. Now that Christmas has passed, I can reflect upon the whole process without fear of the recipient's surprise being spoiled. This was one of those rare projects in which the client gave me permission to create something beautiful seemingly without any input or concern as to how it would turn out. I was initially a bit nervous since I had no guidelines beyond the concept of having a mother and six daughters being taught. This was to represent my client Jack's own wife and kids without being a literal portrait. In order to make it work and have a certain family resemblance, I enlisted the help of one of his grown daughters and three of his granddaughters as well an infant cousin to get the photo reference I needed.

Preliminary Sketch

I started with a sketch concept and an idea. i knew I wanted to incorporate a lot of texture and collage elements into the piece as well as metal leafing and I wanted to be free to respond to the painting as it progressed, so I kept the sketch purposefully vague. Using the drawing as a guide, I took dozens of photos, trying to get the angles and poses suggested in the sketch. Working directly on the 24" x 30" birch cradled panel, I then used a composite of many of the resulting photos to make  the final drawing. I had previously applied several coats of acrylic gesso, sanding between coats, so I had a nice surface on which to draw. After I was satisfied with the drawing, I began the painting process by applying the collage elements using matte medium as a glue.

The geometric shapes at the bottom were a heavy cotton rag printmaking paper. The other flowers and leaves were created by tearing, crushing and otherwise molding various weights of paper to create the the shapes I wanted. The shapes were then applied with the matte medium and allowed to dry

Some of the elements were stubborn and required and extra coat of medium to adhere tot he surface. Once everything was applied and dry, I covered the entire surface with a wash of burnt sienna acrylic and began to block in the shapes, colors and values with acrylic paint. I was not satisfied with the tooth of the surface in some areas, so I used a heavy gel acrylic medium in some areas such as the suggestion of the sun at the top in order to get the surface ridges evident there.

Other areas just needed a little more acrylic matte medium stomped on with my trusty beat up 2" house painting brush. From there, I pushed and pulled the different areas, alternating between dry brush and wash, sometimes wiping back the washes to leave the residue in the low areas to achieve the effect I wanted. I envisioned a profusion of pattern and texture but I also wanted the patterns to compliment each other, so I carefully created different patterns for each of the dress fabrics and the sofa. The pastel colors of the girl's dresses contrast well with the more saturated colors of the background. The foil areas were applied with a readily available leafing kit and then they were glazed back to add depth and cut back on the reflective quality which was distracting.

Once all the background and fabric areas were complete, I painted all the faces and skin areas with oil. If you want to try this mixed media approach, just remember that oil will adhere to acrylic, but not vice-versa. Oil is the final layer and there is no going back to acrylic once the oil paint goes on. After the painting was finished, I had it photographed and a 16" x 20" giclee print was created for each of the six daughters while the original was presented to Nancy, Jack's wife. If you remember from the previous post, Jack himself had yet to see the artwork at any point in the process. I was very nervous, but felt confident that it would be well received by all. My suspicions were confirmed when Jack and Nancy made a special trip by the studio to thank me and tell me how much they loved it. Mission accomplished. I hope to do more of these figurative type works in the future.

Previous post on using metal leaf

Using Gold (Metal) Leaf

Detail of my distressed metal leaf frame

I'm starting a new portrait commission for a client/friend of mine Jeff Dinardo. I wanted to do something that looks like an Old World artifact, so that included creating some sort of gold leafed frame and panel to paint on. It will be a portrait reminiscent of an Italian Renaissance painting, so the old look is certainly in order. If you have never used foil leaf or any kind of antiquing, I recommend giving it a try. It's not as hard as you might think once you get the hang of it. I show this process in depth in my painting video "Conquer Your Acrylic Demons, so you can check it out there as well.

These supplies are readily available at craft and art supply stores as well as online. If you can't find these brands I am sure other brands will work equally well. It took me a couple tries to start getting the results I wanted.

Liquitex acrylic color (I chose a Red Oxide and Taupe mixed together, but about any contrasting color will work)
Old World Art- Gold Leafing Kit # 831
Jo Sonja's Decor Crackle
Sandpaper

Here's a sequence of how I applied the gold foil (it's just gold colored metal as real carat gold would be ridiculously expensive).

First, I sanded and prepared the panel. It was a little bit rough to start with so I worked it smoother. This seems sort of counter productive since things only got rougher from there. Step two, was to mix up a brick red acrylic color to coat the frame with.This coat of  serves two two purposes.

First it seals off the wood a little bit and second it gives a contrasting color that peeks through gaps in the metal leafing. Step three was to use the decor crackle to leave a layer that would crack. I put it on under the leafing since I wanted the gold to show the distressing. You brush it on and leave it as it immediately starts to crack and working it just messes with the crackle pattern. You can put it on thick or thin. The thicker the layer, the wider and deeper the crackle pattern.

Once the crackle is completely dry, you can move onto the next step which is to apply the metal leaf. First, apply the gold leaf adhesive with a brush. It goes on like very fluid rubber cement. Be sure to clean the brush thoroughly as the adhesive will gum up a brush when dry. The next step is to apply the metal leaf. The foil is whisper thin, so you need to take care in application. I used a soft 2" brush to aid the application process. I did not want an even application, so I purposely laid it down with gaps and cracks in order to give the appearance of a distressed  and aged surface. If there are spots that are not covered enough, I go back and add a little foil. It took me about 6-7 sheets of the foil to cover the whole frame edge.

The frame is currently too shiny for my taste, so next, I will glaze it down with a brownish acrylic glaze and rub it back, leaving "grime in the cracks and accentuating the crackle texture.. I also plan on sanding areas and adding more distressing. I'll show this in the next post along with the drawing which has been approved by the collector.


Part 1 of this project
Part 2 of this project
Part 3 of this project
Part 4 of this project (finish)

Quick Draw Result

Steampunk Anglerfish Spaceship- Acrylic and metal leaf, 11" x 10"

As I mentioned last week, I participated in a fund raiser auction at the Reagan Academy in Springville, Utah last Friday night. About a dozen artists gathered to create a piece of art in a roughly two hour time frame (many thanks to artist Julie Olson for these photos). The art was then auctioned off at the end of the event. I cheated a bit and did my under painting of this Steampunk spaceship beforehand as well as creating a distressed faux leaf textured border. This one fits in with previous pieces I have done using this technique.  It's always a bit stressful to "perform" on such a time line, but I enjoy these demo sorts of events.

Me "faux" painting- I was already done by the time this was shot.

Usually I don't have to worry about it being finished at the end of the time, so I found myself working quickly to make sure that all areas of the picture maintained an equal level of "finish. I think this is good advice and a worthy challenge. I have heard it said by many artists that you should approach your work in such a way that you could stop at any moment and the picture would look "finished". In other words, don't overwork any part of the piece at the expense of another. I found myself analyzing what strokes would best describe the effect I was trying to achieve. I would have preferred another few hours, but time ran out quickly. Given more time, I would go back in and strengthen the transitions between light and shadow and make the lighting more dramatic, but hey, I had two hours. I took an extra ten minutes or so as the auction got underway to put on a few highlights and a signature and then it was sold to the highest bidder. Last year the auction raised about $8000 for the school.