More progress on skull

I put in the body colors for the skull today - it went amazingly fast. But things will slow down as I put more and more details in.

For now, the main thing is to get the major shadows and lighter areas blocked in. Reflections and subtle details will take longer, and will be added along with the highlights.

Paintings in process

I made some progress in the last week and a half. Got two paintings transferred to board, and acrylic underpainting blocked in. I also got the first layers of oil paint blocked in. The Malibou Mermaid Barbie painting is a commission. I got the body color blocked in for the cliffs and sea. Next week, after that layer dries, I can put in whitecaps, waves, and highlights on the rocks.

Tree boa

After rearranging and doing numerous thumbnail sketches, i finally settled on how the snake should curl around a branch inside a skull. I got a fairly finished drawing done, and will transfer this to panel later this week. I thought about having the snake going after a flying bird, but decided to have the bird caught and dead.

Lizard model

This evening, I did some photography, to develop reference photos for a number of paintings I'm going to be starting. (enough to keep me busy for quite a while). As usual, I underestimated the amount of time it would take, and only got about halfway through what needed to be done. However, I was happy with how my little copulating monitor lizards are looking! After looking at the photo, I'm going to retake it tomorrow night, from a slightly higher angle.

I also started trying to manipulate and set up the boa in a tree branch. The clay model snake is so limpid that I needed to find away to suspend it and get rid of the droop. String or wire would cut into the clay and would not be a good solution. So I used a band of saran wrap to suspend it... this suspension method doesn't cut into the clay.

Armature for Lizards

The first half of my day was not fun... worked for a few hours at the Bank, doing some contract work. Then I headed to Pearl Art Supply and bought some modeling clay.... only problem is that it was so heavy to lug that to the studio in my backpack!

I made the armatures for two monitor lizards. They will be mating, inset inside a human skull cut away from the side. A continuation of the idea started with "The Lizard Part of My Brain " painting.

The armature, though simple, must capture the essence of the gesture of the lizard. I might still move it and bend it around somewhat, but I want to have the basic gesture captured from the start. In the photo above, you can see the aluminum wire armature from above. It's covered with masking tape to help keep the clay from sliding around when it is applied.

I made the female lizard a little smaller. Tomorrow I'll start adding the clay. Then, this weekend, I hope to shoot some reference photos of all these reference models so i can begin painting. So here is my queue of projects/ideas that have reached a more tangible state (preliminary drawings done or thumbnail sketches, reference models sculpted, etc):
Fighting chimps (anatomical) series
5 more BDSM skeleton/submissive paintings
Lizards mating inside a skull
Snake hunting inset in skull
Barbie mythology - mermaids

New Ideas percolating

I have so many ideas swirling around in my head right now that I have trouble sleeping or relaxing. When I retired from my corporate slave job, I had this fear that I would run out of ideas. Fortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case right now.

Because of the strong daylight I get in my studio, I will be setting up props and other reference models and photographing them at night in a controlled light situation. From this I can derive reference photos. Because I think that setting up lights is such a pain, I'm going to shoot several reference photos at the same time.

Therefore, I am madly sculpting snakes, and copulating lizards. By this weekend, I hope to shoot reference photos for several paintings.

I really had fun with the opened skull paintings ("The Lizard Part of my Brain" as an example), and have some ideas for a couple of more paintings that explore primitive emotions and drives. I sculpted a tree boa, which will be coiled around a twisty branch, ready to strike an innocent bird, all set inside an opened skull. Today I picked up a beautiful twisty tree branch at Ixia.

Tomorrow I have to pick up a bunch of modeling clay... these lizards and snakes take up a surprisingly large amount of clay.

So the photo shoot will include, attacking chimp models, snake on branch, mating lizards, skulls from different angles, plus some Barbie dolls. Economy of scale, I guess.