artcontrol.me

Artwork of William Mckee

Tagacrylic

Board Acrylic Takaka

August 13, 2012 / / Comments Off

I’ve been saying in the last few posts about posting my recent acrylic board paintings. Landscapes from when I returned from ChCh. I borrowed Joys camera and finally took some photos of them. I need to borrow this camera more often (or better yet – buy one!) and take more regular photos of my artwork – it builds up otherwise and it’s an overload of images to upload. There are still works from the South Island that I have yet to post.

This is 3 photos merged into one. This allowed me to create a extended view of the canvas - it’s rather long. The acrylic paint I’m using is just cheap poster paint. It seems to work alright. The reference for this painting was a drawing at Collingwood. Another drawing to acrylic paint. This is a view in Takaka. This painting has had almost nothing added to it, keeping it true to the drawing. As I layer up color this may change. Cardboard. My fathers wife has a bunch of this cardboard, I used some for painting on. I don’t really like the rough, grainy finish, but it holds the paint far better then brown paper. No reference for this, instead just making the shapes from imagination.

Wall Paint Levin

August 12, 2012 / / Comments Off

I’ve been cooking (curries, and a cake), and giving the place a tidy, and slight move! Moved all my gear from the lounge to my bedroom – which is now taking a more computer and art studio setup. Works for me though. I haven’t done any digital painting but have had a go with acrylic paint – on the walls.

I had no refernce or ideas – just going on the idea of an enviorment of some sort – maybe a landscape. Straight in with paint – drawing in lines – then covering in tone.

My palette, old plate. Primary colors – yellow and blue have been used. About to do a layer of red, helps the highlights and the balance of greens and reds.
Basic idea, building up the marks. Large flat brush is used. Exploring ideas that I started with oil painting. Leaving areas. Filling areas. Character in the foregound. Great to have the room to develop a character and the enviroment around him. This is certainly a painting style that works for me.
Legs. Very important. How else can he walk? The red in the background is a pillar the two characters are standing on – the the foreground area. Below is the forest and water. Travel on the pillar? The corner. Lots of white space still. Needs reds and more blues.
Some red added over the green. Using opposites works well.
Far right, The other edge of the painting. An oddly shaped mirror rests againist the wall. Several characters have been painting. Reference was me – a self portait! Interesting how the colors change on the surface – darker blue to light.It’s a jigsaw. I can take pieces out and apply new pieces. This is a acrylic painting I did when I first moved back to Levin. A new layer has been added. Blues and reds. Blends into the wall.

Old Paintings: Part two

July 27, 2012 / / Comments Off

Part two of reflecting back at some older paintings. These paintings were done around the same time as the previous post. Last year I watched 5 seasons of the television show ‘The Wire’. I never finished it off, maybe I should go back and finish it. Season one was the best. This is a portrait of two of the main cop characters from the show.

More oil paint. This started with referece of a much younger me, my nana and another photo of nana. It morphed and changed though the layers, turning into something ghostly.Acrylic painting on a Friday. These were some great exercises and I regret not spending more life drawing classes with paint. Working within a time limit for painting taught me a lot. I didn’t have the time to think and ponder, or layer up a work. Working on brown paper was somewhat limited but it didn’t stop me. Most of the time I worked with thin acrylic paint as it allowed it move quickly and create cool dripping effects. This was a longer pose – perhaps up to 30 mins. The model is clearly James – a model I had often when coming onsite to TLC. In this painting there are areas where I have drawn in with ink – I can see this with the blue lines that I used to create the shape. I filled it with paint to create the tone. This is how I worked often with colored pencil as well.

And a sitting pose. Plenty of grays are used in this with minimal color. I havn’t started using my regular yellow for lights, reds for darks, and blue for negative color scheme in this – instead still exploring colors.

And finally a oil painting. This was a study of figures. I left this painting at my last flat in Wellington. To the left you can see part of the painting I did of my sisiter – from the previous blog post.

Basement Landscape

June 20, 2012 / / Comments Off

Since my move I’ve had room to paint. I never painted in my last flat, except for a little in my journal. I don’t really consider this painting though – painting is working large on a board.

Since I have the space I’ve setup  of paintings next to my computer

I started with gouache. Then moved onto acrylic. Once I’m happy with the acrylic layer I’ll lay down oils.

All of these paintings have been recorded – I’ve only uploaded one to youtube…

I’ll do a voice over and upload the others at some point.

I wasn’t happy with this as a gouache but once I turned it to this:

Extremely happy with this. I felt I was able to give it real depth to areas with tone. The brush `I used was resemble small. I brought it last year when I got my oil paints. The hair on it is thick so it can hold a decent amount of paint. Helps to mix multi tones onto the brush and flip the brush in order to get a different tone. Bit like the technique that Roger tea

I was happier with the gouache painting then the previous. Maybe because it had stronger perspective.

Acrylic paint added. I wasn’t on the same flow as the first acrylic…  had lost my wind. I wouldn’t say this ones bad… I just feel it isn;’t as strong as the previous. With some more time I can get it up to scratch.

This was a bunch of portraits but I didn’t like it so decided to turn it into a landscape. I’ve already started the landscape with the goache. It’s a bit of a mess since its a mix of landscape and portraits…. the perspective isn’t in there. I was hoping that acrylic would hellp…

And the acrylic applied. It needs more areas defined. Currently there is too much empty areas. More layers to add depth would help. I’m using a larger brush then the other acrylic – helpful to cover areas quicklly. Working with a slightly smaller brush and adding more contrast to areas will help.