After a huge transition over the past few months, in living situation and the start of a new in-home art studio space, I've been able to start on a new painting which I plan to submit to "the Crow Show 2016", at The Studio Door gallery in San Diego. For the past 17 years, I've been working as an animator. So, for this painting, I decided to create a flying sequence of a crow, with inspiration from the Muybridge locomotion studies of the 1800s. I've always wanted to do something like this in painting, and thought that this would be the perfect time to try one out. Muybridge never captured a crow flying, or at least I haven't been able to find it if he did. I've done my homework on the crow's anatomy and flying style, as well as finding Muybridge reference of a raven's locomotion, so I hope it turns out looking appropriate.
This is actually the 3rd canvas 1st, and the 1st canvas 2nd... if that makes sense. It should create a looping sequence, so as long as the order stays in tack you should be able to start with any of the three canvases. (1,2,3... or, 2,3,1... or, 3,1,2)
The tryptic is designed to be displayed in either a stacked vertical format, or a sequential horizontal format. And, I want to try to keep an aged, weathered look for the background, contrasted with a bold, detailed crows which will be painted in oil on top. Well see how it turns out in the end, but so far the background is pretty much exactly what I hoped for. I used a bone colored base acrylic, then used coffee grounds and water to randomly stain the canvas. Then I used black chalk line for the grid, and blended them all together with gel medium. The result was a slightly worn, slightly grainy, slightly blurred background that should really help pull the background back, and push the the crows forward.
Six sketches of the crow sequence are ready, only three more to go... then comes the oil paint. I'll update this blog as soon as I get the first crow done. I hope you enjoy the process as much as I do.
-Steve