First Shawn Painting: Shawn’s Sunrise Stretch
Finally! Back in the studio after too many other things (business stuff and social obligations) were keeping me busy and unable to paint. This morning I started a new painting of Shawn—my first of him.
I went through a couple of boxes of slides from the Diamond Head photo shoot and found some likely candidates, then chose one of Shawn standing in wet sand, stretching backwards. It’s a great shot.
(Nevertheless I did feel the need to alter it a bit. You’ll notice I got rid of the concrete bunker on the left—I used Photoshop to substitute a slightly different view of the shoreline. You’ll also see, especially in the later stages, I’ve exaggerated the slope of the beach for more drama.)
After I sketched it onto the canvas in pencil, I laid a purple wash over it, as usual. While I waited for the wash to dry, I mixed the colors. I was going to use a limited palette on this one and I did keep it pretty limited—but ended up using more colors than I originally intended to: 2 blues (ultramarine and cerulean), 2 earth tones (burnt siena and raw siena), 1 green (hooker’s), and cadmium red and cadmium yellow medium. And white, of course.
Mixed a passable black (for the hair) from burnt siena and ultramarine blue. Raw siena is great as a base for the sand, of course. And for the blue-grey early morning sky I’m mixing the two blues and adding burnt siena to grey it down.
Took me several hours to do all this—choose the image, draw it on the canvas, mix the colors, and then lay them all in fairly accurately, but rough. It’s looking okay. I’m not thrilled with it yet, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I usually am not thrilled with them at this stage. Anyway, tomorrow I’ll take it to the next level. That’s when we’ll see if this is going to actually work or if I paint over it and move on to something else.
The Next Day
It always amazes me, when I’m ready to start a painting, or at a difficult stage in doing a painting, how TERRIFIED I am of diving in. Why should it be so scary? But it is. I get paralyzed and more often than not I’ll find something else to do, ANYTHING, even something boring, as long as it means I can avoid confronting that canvas!
So this morning I forced myself to go in and start painting. Once I begin, it’s never as hard as I thought it was going to be—well, occasionally it is, when a painting is really NOT working, but usually it’s just a matter of starting in on it, and then it goes okay.
I had to let go of the fear and remind myself that my paintings always turn out well when I’m having fun. And in order to have fun, I have to give up all expectations and just enjoy the sensation of spreading paint on the canvas. I have to paint thickly and with abandon. So this morning I took a deep breath and loaded my brush with what my critical mind always says is “WAY too much paint!”—and went for it.
I painted that way all morning, and had a wonderful time! The illustration above at left shows the painting about halfway through—I had repainted the sky to make it a bit less grey and a bit more blue, and I did the trees and Shawn’s body. Later (right) I got to the sand and the ocean.
I was able to stay in that frame of mind all day. I just kept taking chances, and they kept working, because I stayed loose, and didn’t get too careful—didn’t let the painting become too "precious." I kept it loose and had fun, and by late in the day it was pretty much finished. And I’m very happy with it. Of course it’s not perfect—I can always find fault somewhere—but it’s got energy and life and it captures the moment—a gorgeous muscular guy stretching on the beach as the sun is just about to come over the horizon. I think I’m going to call it “Shawn’s Sunrise Stretch.”
The Third Day
Today I went in and put the final touches on “Shawn’s Sunrise Stretch.” It hardly needed anything—just a little finishing touch here and there. Then I signed it. And it’s finished! I’m pretty happy with it…I think it turned out well. We’ll see how people like it.