Tag: whale tail

Diving Whale Tail

Stuck with the whale theme for this next project. This is a diving whale based loosely on a reference photo I found on-line. Also bought some Payne’s Gray to work on a more balanced value gradation on this piece that is dominated by the tail.

I think this is pretty close to done, but I don’t like the matte finish, so I’m going to do a final glaze layer in hopes of giving the entire piece a wet look.

This is a diptych, each panel measures 9″ x 12″. I was pretty specific with the panel choice so as to get good proportions for the tail. In fact, I think the painting looks better than it really is b/c of the diptych layout. Curious what others think, too.

Technical Details:

  • 2 gesso panel boards, 9″x12″ each
  • Brushes – 2 flats (sizes 2 and 4), 1 round (size 4)
  • Tail palette – Payne’s Gray, Titanium White, and variations of Black and Ultramarine Blue
  • Ocean – Ultramarine Blue + variations of Pthalo Blue, Pthalo Green, and Titanium White.
  • Water dripping off tail – Titanium White + Naples Yellow + Paynes Gray + Ultramarine Blue
Quick practice sketch.
Quick practice sketch.
Rough in with diptych composition.
Rough in with diptych composition.
Ocean with initial tail shadow.
Ocean with initial tail shadow.
Tail almost done
Tail almost done
Water running off tail and updates to ocean near tail with ripples.
Water running off tail and updates to ocean near tail with ripples.
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“Baleine!” c’est fini

This piece came together very quickly. Pretty happy with the end result. No brush work – all knife, so I pushed myself to develop more expertise with this tool. There were a few trying moments to get edges right, but it really opened my eyes to the nuances of manipulating the paint once it’s on the board.

The iPhone photos don’t capture the textural knife effects, but hopefully you get the idea of the progressive development in the time sequence below.

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Light pencil sketch as outline.
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Session 2 gets the initial values, sky, and some experimentation with the ocean colors.
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Session 3 made big strides. Figured out the right balance of ocean colors – blues and greens. Whale tail has initial form, but needs work – too flat.
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Session 4, lots of work to get the tail coloring and values right. Also figured out the water light reflection onto the bottom of the tail. Finally committed to having really tumultuous water, so added white caps and spray. Pure guesswork… no idea what I’m doing at this point. The painting knife and I were not on speaking terms for a brief span of time.
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Finished! Added touch ups in various places, but most notably updated the values on the horizon part of the ocean – it was too dark and contiguous, so broke it up with some white caps and lighter blue mixes.
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“Baleine!”

IMG_3653

Started another piece called “Baleine!”. This is a humpback whale diving. Going to do this as a knife painting to get some texture that will reflect light and give the sense of water/wet on the whale. This is a small gesso board, which works well for knife work.

The palette is pretty straight forward, but the water will be a little tricky, largely b/c I’m a water moron. But it will be a good exercise. The whale tail itself should move quickly, as the tricky part is the initial dimensions and shape, which I spent some time already working through before putting gone the board to paint.

I roughed in the sky as part of this first session, thinking I just wanted to get the right value on the board so the contrast with the tail would work. But it turns out that the “rough” in is pretty good and likely I’ll just keep it as is.

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