Today I completed a second painting of "Jim" using the 16-value geometric gestures from the previous attempt, but scaled down so that each is 0.2 inches square, producing an image about 40 inches high by 22 inches wide. The 200 x 120 gesture grid (24,000 squares) was painted more than six times using four colors until the color depth was pleasing (to me)... The previous airbrush clogging problems of airbrush have been virtually eliminated by switching to paint manufactured by E'TAC -- GREAT stuff!!!

The 17 gestural values (16 from darkest to lightest in equal 'steps' plus blank/white) overpainted in four transparent colors are capable of producing 83,521 (17^4) unique color patterns. From some distance, the painting is a fair likeness of Jim and I like this image very much. But close up, the patterns dominate and I think they're remarkable and intensely interesting -- much more so than the image alone -- quite compelling to me, really!

I'd like a better balance between these near and far views, but I suspect that viewing this sort of work up close is always going to be more exciting and thought provoking than the overall image... I'll have to give this some more thought!

"Jim", painting completed March 3, 2007, 43 x 24 inches, acrylic on Rives BFK

detail of forehead and hair

detail of eye and ear -- click image for enlargement

detail of neck and shirt -- click image for enlargement

early state -- yellow has been completed, red uderway

early state with red uderway

early state -- closeup of red going down on yellow

movie of airbrush painting

-- Mike Lyon

Labels: painting

¶ 10:21 AM