Heracles and Telephus WIP, Part 1

My next work is a pencil drawing of Heracles and Telephus.  Heracles (or Hercules) is obviously the well-known Greek hero, while Telephus is his son by Auge, daughter of King Aleus of Tegea.  This is based off a statue that stands in the Huntington Gardens in Los Angeles, California.

This is drawn on smooth Bristol paper.  I outlined the statue with light lines with a 4B pencil, and defined the shapes with very light shading.  After fixing any mistakes I had made, I darkened the outer lines further and filled out the shading with an HB pencil.  This was all done with a light and careful hand, so that mistake could be easily erased.  It's one of the big advantages of smooth Bristol.  Another plus is that you can get nice and detailed in the final stages of the drawing, which I will cover in my next update.

Reference photo of the statue.

Seraphim WIP, Part 3 - Finished!

The Seraphim painting is done and finished!

After Part 2 of the painting, I had about half the feathers laid in on the wings, and the foreground and background partly blocked in.  A few yellow outlines were still showing through as yellow-green.

I filled in the wings first and defined most of the feathers.  While I was doing that, I used some of the blue to tidy up and hide the remaining outlines.  Then I put one or two touches on the man, and put a medium tan down for the ground, and defined the fiery hole further.  The spit of land the man was lying on was at an odd angle, I bulked it up and added the man's shadow.  I touched up the feathers that looked out of place and added white to the Seraphim's blinding face.  Finally I filled in the sky, being careful not to make it too saturated or colorful.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the painting turned out.  It's a common occurrence with me; I beat myself up about the early stages of a painting, and then it turns out not so bad.

There was not a specific theme or message to this painting.  I wanted to show a man in awe at being shown even a sliver of the power of a Seraphim, a creature beyond human comprehension in its entire and true form.  This would be the angel showing its most simple facet, a part of its being that a merely mortal mind could digest.  I do want to have specific themes for this kind of paintings; they will come in the future.

Seraphim WIP, Part 2

So I've got the main colors blocked out in the Seraphim painting.  Now what?

I have to slowly focus in from the large blocks of color, to local shapes (wings, the man on the ground, the surround ground, etc), to the final details.  This is the hardest part of a painting for me.  The novelty of starting a new painting has worn off, there's 70-80% of the painting to finish, and I have to just sit down and paint.  Sit down and paint.  I feel demoralized, I think it looks like crap, but I have to keep painting and keep the momentum going.

With this particular painting, I am regretting the bold yellow outlines around everything.  They're too saturated, too yellow, I'm having to tone them down and block them out.  I wish I had done a more detailed underdrawing as well.  This was a "sketch it and begin" painting, where you get the idea out quick, and then realize you really should've put in an hour of preparatory work, including and up to a tiny test painting for testing the colors.

I brought the man into focus, and wished I hadn't.  He looks like a blob.  I had more success with the wings of the Seraphim; I outlined the outermost edges of the wings with a mix of blue and gray so their edges didn't pop out too much, and sculpted the underlit feathers with a middle-value blue and  light blue.

I do like how the painting looks much better than its very first stages, though.  Maintain the pace, push through to the end.