PAINTING FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

This week I began a painting from a photograph I took about four years ago, of bicycles in an outdoor cafe courtyard. The impetus came from a theme, Bicycles,  to be featured at Madison and Main Gallery in Greeley Colorado in a few months from now. Because it is envisioned to be fully realistic to catch the details of the bicycles, I plan to follow the same sequence of steps I used to develop the painting Emporium Window, shown on this blog in January.

Since I have not painted for a long time, I feel a bit rusty... not secure enough to paint without first doing a drawing in the old exacting manner. Here is the photo I am working from:

Bicycles at Margies,  photo © by Ruth Zachary

First I attempted to straighten the perspective of the image so the tables would be parallel with the ground. In years past, I used to transfer one or more images to my etching plates by making an outline drawing of all the design elements, and then tracing around the lines or edges, below:

Bicycle Cafe, tracing for image size 18x22" on a 24x30" panel. © by Ruth Zachary. 

 

 

 

 

In the past, I sometimes used carbon paper to transfer an image to the foundation, in this case, a Masonite panel primed with gesso. But the old carbon paper was pretty dried out and the image very faint. So I reverted to another old method, rubbing the back of the tracing with ebony pencil before tracing the lines. I went over the lines once more, with a hard pencil, and that time, the image did transfer to the panel's surface. I couldn't believe just getting that far took all of three days!

Next I will re-pen lines with a technical pen so they won't smudge, and then lay in colors using acrylic paint, as I hope will show off the details of the bicycles, the paving of the courtyard, and more. I have just gathered a collection of beautiful oil colors, and I am anxious to try them out. It is possible I will also mix media again, using oil colors over the acrylic layers, which is an acceptable method.  If I don't have enough time for the oils to dry, I will finish the piece as an acrylic painting.

All images and writing are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary.