Something Nasty V

Here is how the painting looked when Sadie got here yesterday.  Hair and hand painted.

Hand and face will need a bit of noodling.  The pots need to be finished.  The interior of the shed and the door bolt need to be finished.   And all the edges need a little finessing.  But pretty good for a panic stricken five days of painting.

Something Nasty IV

Second pass at the face.  Raced to get this done yesterday because my model came over with her family to take a look at the progress.

My flesh tones were an evolving experiment.  I waffled back and forth all day inverting my warms and cools until they felt right.  Her neck got a little thick, and I may have done an Egyptian eye--you know, where an eye in profile starts to become too wide and starts to look like you're seeing it more straight on than you should.  This can all be fixed later.

Here is the face under different lighting.  Isn't it weird how dramatically the form can change under different lighting?

Something Nasty III

I wasn't able to do any work on this painting on Wednesday.  The whole thing was wet.  So I popped it in my varnishing hood with a lamp and let it cure.  By Thursday evening it was ready to for some essential oil of petroleum.  I wiped it down and took a look.

I plopped in some basic flowerpots.  I'm going to scumble and impasto some texture over top.

After being on a roll it was TORTURE not getting anything done for two days (an hour and a half of dinking around with flowerpots doesn't count).  Today I'm going back to the face.

Hey, Wha' Happened

So I thought I would give an update on what's happening in my studio since Kate is attempting to steal all the art glory on the blog.  Here is some stuff all finished up that I have been working on and one piece on the easel. 

 Crap on a table

Second Day of the Dead completed

More crap on a table...but with a blue book

on the easel now...surprise, another Vanitas piece.

One thing I finally need to address is the bio section on my website page (www.davidgluckart.com).  In it, I say "David Gluck currently paints with a cybernetic right arm, which scientists confirm as the source of his powers."  More than a few people have taken this as a serious statement, which I find hilarious.  I have even had people look down at my hand when meeting me, expecting me to have an iron grip.  Probably my favorite was when my friend overhead someone telling everyone how I faked having a cybernetic arm to curry sympathy in order to receive grants etc.  Recently, I got the email below, with which I responded with the plot to the 6 Million Dollar Man.

Email:

"Dear Mr Gluck,
I'm a volunteer of Hubei Provincial Museum of China. One of your paintings "The Trapper" is displayed here.
From relevant introduction about the artist, we know you use "cybernetic right arm" to paint. We have no idea
How it works?Would you kindly tell us in a simple way? Hope we do not offend you!
Look forward to your reply,thank you very much!"

 My answer:

Sorry for the delayed reply.  When I was an ace test-pilot my ship crashed, nearly killing me. Deciding that the Canadian health care system had the technology to rebuild me, the government decided to augment my arm with cybernetic parts which gave me superhuman strength and speed. 


I have decided I might need to change my bio pic to this as a result of all the inquiries.

Matthew Innis was nice enough to make the one below for me.

Something Nasty II

As of last night:

I'm not crazy about this photo.  I think I've got some camera issues to work out.  In real life the green is greener and the contrast is lower. #artistblamingtheircamera #stupiduseofhashtagspissmeoff

I used Nicosia Green Earth for the green.  I picked up the tube several years ago at the PSoA and tried to use it, but I'll be honest: I hated it.  It was a pretty colour, but the texture was bizarre compared to the paints I was used to.  I finally donned my big girl panties, though, and worked hard to befriend this ornery colour.  And today, it did exactly what I wanted it to.  I like that challenge of figuring out how to use a colour right.  I also used Nicosia to counter the chroma in the hair and skin.  I burned through half a tube of it painting the background and doing the preparatory studies necessary to figure out exactly how to get the texture right.

Here are the tools I ended up using to tease out that wood grain:

A nubby little spatula thingy that I was tempted to throw out many times over the years because I couldn't figure out what it was good for, and a ratty messed up brush from the hardware store.  The brush created an effortless scratchy impasto, and the spatula was used occasionally to scrape the paint off when it got too dense.  Works better than a knife.

Chicken update:

A bald eagle ate Bluebell, my prettiest hen.  She was the iridescent black and green one.  On the one hand I was really sad, because she had been broody but I had kicked her off the nest, kind of making her death my fault.  But on the other, I was like, cool.  A bald eagle in my back yard.  Have at it.  I totally support endangered species, man.

Something Nasty

Sadie and her husband are creeping up the west coastline as we speak.  Here's what I got done yesterday:

The Curious Case of the Impossible Deadline

What do you call it when you have a gallery show deadline for three figurative paintings on July 1st?  You call it an "oh shit" moment.  This fall I will be participating in another Women Painting Women show with Principle Gallery, and I will be showing with a whole whack of lovely artists, most of whom I consider good friends, and most of whom will be incredibly pissed if I don't make this deadline.  One friend in particular, Sadie Valeri, is visiting me in a week's time, and will probably suplex me when she looks inside my studio and sees that there are no paintings.  So.  Before she gets here, I've got to finish one painting.  Or at least get it to the 90% mark.  Mentally, it's easier to give myself a deadline for 90% finished.  I will realistically need to go back a week or two later to fuss with some aspect of the painting.

Last night I took the blank surface to this point.

Until Sadie arrives, I will post my daily progress.  I probs won't do an in depth discussion of what I'm doing.  I need to haul ass.