Turpentine diaries 4/28/18

This photo shows my first painting session with Agamemnon and Orestes.  I know, I know, a bit high falutin but I am reading Aeschylus’s Eumenides.  Agamemnon and Orestes is 44″ x 60.”

I mentioned that I prefer white grounds these days, but I am always preparing canvases, which means I have some prepared months ago, like this umber-toned canvas.  I prepared this canvas last August.  I’ve frequently used gray, burnt sienna, and raw umber grounds, like this one.

Notice the heater in the lower-left?  I turned it off yesterday for the Summer–so I thought.  The high of 45 has me hovering around the heater as I work.

I’m working on a lot of paintings with figures smaller than life-size, much smaller.  So it’s good to do a painting with figures closer to life-size, as with this painting.  The scale has a tremendous effect on painting, and it’s not much talked about.