Addo Elephant Portrait

 I have an intention to do some art every day. It never really works out that way... L but I try. One approach is to have a sheet prepared and waiting with an outline of a subject on it. Then I can spend an hour, or a few minutes, with pencil and putty rubber developing the image. I did this with some of the locomotive drawings I mention in previous posts. I thought that living in Africa made wildlife a logical subject. I have hundreds of photographs to draw on (Excuse the pun).

This work is intended to be a bit of a departure from the – what I see as traditional – view of an Elephant with big tusks, facing the viewer, with dust and so on around its legs. I decided to focus on the face alone, and so I have merely suggested the forelegs and left everything else out. See what you think.

Portrait of an Elephant in Addo NP

The drawing is on A3 paper. I used a set of Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils and 200 gsm drawing paper. To date these are the best pencils I have worked with for drawings of this kind.

SAAB Gripen over the Swartberg - creation of an oil painting

 This painting was quite an involved project. I began with a concept of two SAAF Gripen flying over the Swartberg Pass in the South African Swartberg Mountains. My inspiration came from experiencing a pair of these aircraft low flying over the area whilst I was out walking at a place called Groenfontein.

I had taken a photograph from the top of the pass so had a backdrop from a fair height looking south. For the aircraft image, I used my Airfix 1:72 scale model of a SAAB Gripen. I placed it in different poses on a flat surface, and photographed it with a digital camera.

Composition

These photographs (Image 1) were then rather crudely combined using Microsoft PowerPoint. The resulting image / slide was saved as a jpg format file and posted in the Aviation Art forum on Wet Canvas. This has proved to be a fairly reliable and constructive source of advice on matters relating to aviation and art. I have used it for several years and like it.

Image 1 - Airfix model mock up

One member of the forum advised me to use a free software package called ’Sketchup’; it has a library of three dimensional models of most aircraft which can be positioned and posed easily in a virtual space. I did this and then placed the resulting images into my PowerPoint background and posed a selection of compositions on the Wet Canvas forum for additional ideas and criticism (Image 2).

 

Image 2 - Thumbnails of Sketchup composition

From these ideas and with some ‘votes’ from the forum members I selected version two as the basis for the eventual painting.

Artwork development

I usually start my artwork with pencil drawings. I find this provides me with a feel for how much tonal range I need to use to give the feeling of depth to an image. I am basically creating atmospheric perspective. The drawing process also assists me in becoming familiar with the shape and salient features of the subject (Image 3).

 

Image 3 - Initial A4 drawings

Once I was happy with the pencil drawings, the ones above were an A4 initial sketch. I worked from them on A3 paper to re draw them in more detail.

Watercolour work

Following the drawing stage I moved to the colour decision process. I restored an airbrush and compressor arrangement that has languished in my cupboard for many years and used it to create a background wash. Onto this wash I then painted the two aircraft (Image 4).

 

Image 4 - Watercolour study

I can’t say I was particularly happy with the result as a piece of art in its own right. But felt it served its purpose. How wrong I was!

My main reason for producing a watercolour in one of these projects is to create a full colour idea of what the final painting will look like. It tells me what colours to use and where they may clash. Except in this case I did not pay enough attention to the small issue of aircraft camouflage!

The oil painting

The process I am describing started in August 2020, by the time I started on the Oil painting proper it was October.

I outlined my composition and created a Burnt Umber under painting of the aircraft, then worked over this with Payne’s Grey. After that I glazed in some hues that I thought would serve as the basis for the landscape behind the aircraft.

I then painted over the aircraft in a colour mix that more closely met the colours visible on photographs of the real aircraft in service with the SAAF. This is where I began to see a problem. The SAAF colour scheme is designed to make the aircraft fade into the haze of distant clouds or landscapes (Image 5).

 

Image 5 - Initial oil painting

I decided at this point that the landscape had to be darker than the aircraft so that they would stand out. So I duly spent some ‘happy time’ rendering a suitably realistic landscape behind the aircraft (Image 6).

 

Image 6 - Adjusted painting with landscape completed

This looked quite hopeful until I converted the image to greyscale. I could see tone was an issue and any ideas of glazing in a distant haze would also allow the aircraft to blend in! (Image 7)

 

Image 7 - Greyscale of adjusted painting

As a result I worked this version over with some Umber to darken the background and ‘cool it down’ so it would recede (Image 8).

 

Image 8 - Landscape with Umber glaze

This worked though I lost some of my lovely landscape details. With the addition of some contrails I did manage to gain a feel for movement and speed in the image. Many aviation paintings depict the aircraft in perfect focus and detail which makes the machine hang motionless in the air.

 

Image 9 Greyscale image of Umber glaze

A monochrome version of the image revealed that the tonal range, plus the contrast with the landscape, now brought the aircraft into the foreground (Image 9).

My final step was to complete the detailing of the aircraft and enhance the contrails to strengthen the feel for speed (Image 10).

Image 10 - Final painting / artwork

Winsor & Newton Artisan (water mixable oils) colours on Fredix canvas board. (50 x 76 cm).