Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art and Writing

Painting the Great Cathedral in Leon.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Though I usually reserve this blog for the "step-by-step" paintings, I posted this particular painting session over on my main blog because it was about Nicaragua. However, I'm cross-posting here to put down the art details for those of you more interested in the how-to aspect of the painting.

Steps:

1. Slapped some burnt umber gesso on the heavy paper, mixed in with a bit of magenta here and there. Scratched the basic layout of the image I wanted (using a composite of four different photos) with a small twig I keep around for such purposes. Started adding some highlights.

2. More high- and mid- colors added. Trying to work out the architectural details. Spraying water to loosen up stubborn areas I want to change, and letting the water and paint run down the paper.

3. More of above, with scratching back into the high- and mid- areas with the twig to correct some issues.

4. Brought in sky/background to give me an idea of how light was too light and how dark was too dark.

5. This photo got dumped on another computer and I'm to lazy to look for it.

6. Fleshed out the building a bit more, trying to drop some of the colors from the building into the lion statue in the front so that, even though the lion is a blue-black color, it will seem cohesive with the rest of the painting.

7. Did some spraying with a water bottle and scratching, the goal being to give the painting a worn, aged look, like the cathedral itself. If you wet nearly dry acrylic, the scratching isn't so neat and it works well. Not a lot of difference between this and the last one, though there is change in the building...

8. Focusing on the lion now, working on building up layers so that the mane and facial structure is made from many overlapping areas of color instead of just one or two. I prefer lots of layers because it literally and visually builds a richer image instead of just a couple of flat layers of paint. And, since I'm using cheap paint because I'm broke, there is a transparency issue which works for me when I rely upon layers: everything shows through in a sense.

9. This is pretty much it. I'd say it's finished, though I will set it away for a few weeks and look at it again before I say for sure.

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