Reference pictures - sometimes a struggle.

I know what you'll tell me. Painting from pictures isn't such a experience as a painting from life. And I have to agree. But sometimes it's hard to seek out interesting ideas for life painting if you want to stay at home. That's even more truthful if you live in cold England...

I've recently met a great pages where people from all around a globe offer their photographs for artist as a reference pictures. Here there are:

https://pmp-art.com

Great thing about it is that you pick your picture, portray it in your own style and you post it on the pages and tag a creator of the photo reference so that he or she can see that his or her photo was inspiring for an effort.

I've done two pieces from this pages and both had a huge success among the people on pmp-art.com which made me so happy and I keeps me motivated (although today was a hard day at work and I've decided just to procrastinate which doesn't feel always good but what you gonna do right? :-) )

Here they are:

Tiger cub (oil on gesso board 6 x 8 inches)

Samurai (oil on streched canvas 20x30 inches)

If you want to see the actual reference photos go to my profile on the pmp-art.com

https://pmp-art.com/petr-stranik

where are the linkages under my paintings that will bring you towards creators...

Have a nice Evening everyone!

Commission as a pure pleasure

On 4th of December I visited my dear friend Andrew in his lovely house in Menston which is small area near Otley -really nice place to visit and I recommend you to do it if you're in west Yorkshire.
Andrew is a person whom I hold a big gratitude to. He gave me my job! Thanks to him I can make a living here in England as a delivery driver.

But this article is mainly about our collaboration in artistic field. He'd saw my paintings of big cats (Security, Spotted which you can also find in section "ART-WILDLIFE") and he thought that I would be able to manage to capture his gorgeous german shepherds Izak and Zephyr.

So on that Sunday the 4th I went to his house and met his lovely wife Sonia and the figures of action - Izak and Zephyr. Guys were in a great mood and it was such a blast to see them thrive (I think Zephyr  didn't have a pleasant childhood and Andrew and Sonia rescued him from suffering). I made a bunch of reference pictures on the sofa, in the garden, in doors and outdoors in various position to get myself exited in order to portray them right.

Part of the deal was to make another picture of their old dog Reuben who unfortunately past away year ago. So the quest here was to make two paintings - one of Reuben's from an old photograph and one of Izak and Zephyr all together from the reference that I would obtain for myself in the place of action - home of Andrew's. On the following pictures you can see chronological process of making this painting. At the very bottom of the page you can see a painting of Reuben's as well...

Pic. No. 1 - chasing the right posture of the guys in their home

Pic. No. 2 Preliminary sketch of my picked composition - the main emphasis here is on the expression of a different temperaments of the Izak and Zephyr (Zephyr is more subtle and quiet and Izak is more curious)

Pic. No. 3 Early stage of a putting colour in place...

Pic. No. 4 Final product - Izak and Zephyr (oil on board 24x18 inches)

Reuben (oil on board 14x12 inches)

If you like what I do please give me a shout or if you would like me to do some commission on the similar topic (apparently I love to paint domestic animals of any kind) don't be shy and write me a message. 

All the light in your hearts (especially these days in winter) wishes you Petr...

Setting up a still life in my studio

In  this December right after me moving in to my new place I decided in order to get better finally paint from life. And since I'm very, very shy person and in England and when it's winter - it's really bad idea to go out to paint so I made a decision to start small - to set up a basic still life in my apartment.

"what I want to paint?" I asked myself. As Richard Schmid advocates it should be something that excites you....

You wouldn't believe this but squashes excite me a lot - especially when I make a delicious meals out of them (my favourite is hokkaido squash pancake with some yogurt and strawberries on top) but that's maybe for a different kind of blog or maybe not - write my an enquiry and I'll send you an email with a recipe. My another precious thing in my life is a good coffee and I really dig my moka maker (it's a miraculous tool indeed!). So I gathered them all together and result is seen on the pictures below.

Few mistakes were made - I set up my first still life for a natural daylight which made me a person under a pressure - since I don't have northlight window, shades and lighting were moving so fast so it was kind of a hustle. And a second mistake was that I hadn't made myself a coffee before this sitting so it was twice as demanding to make a picture without a proper level of caffeine because my moka maker was in capture...

Anyhow you can see the result here:

Quicky! - light's coming!

It's been set up pretty quickly - I knew what I wanted - Squashed dance :-D

"Squashed dance around moka" (oil on canvas panel 6x8 inch)

Another tiger painting

Since I love wildlife kind of painting I'd decided before I moved out from my old place that I would try my first painting with tonal underpainting. Up till then I was used to work just with pencil drawings before I started with full rendering with oils.

This tonal approach is the basic and classic way to start a painting. It's a great way to guide your painting process because it includes an information about values (how dark or light things are) as well along with drawing of course. And it's more fun as well because you start with paint right away (in this case I used raw umber for underpainting).

Two major stages are shown down below. In reference picture there were two person behind the tiger and I found them quite disrupting in the composition so I had to edited a picture which effected a lightning of the scene. I hope that I somehow managed to keep the lightning believable....

tonal underpainting in the beginning stage (raw umber)

Final product called "Chill"

French stranger at the table

Sometimes when you're looking for a topic for your paper/canvas/board/forehead or whatever surface you don't seem to find something that would bring you towards that surface to begin putting some colours in it. 

I've been always fascinated with people and the expressions of theirs. Especially strangers whom you don't know and you quite have to guess what's their purpose in this world (is he/she father/mother, good businessman?, artist?, homeless? person who's recently survived a hard struggle?). One just wonders. And that's one of the reasons why I like to travel - I can see a different nature of people all around the globe (besides a nice landscape, buildings, beaches etc...)

back in August when I was in south France, Nice, Riviera of France with my friend, we went in one evening to have some delicious French wine. Right next to us was this person - A middle age man who had discussion with some lovely woman. Something in this guy was just striking. So I made a secret pictures from our table to have some reference shoots for my future use. And I've use it when I got back from my holiday to make this picture called "Will she give me any sugar?" That's what I thought he was most likely thinking (that woman was beautiful!) 

Some of my secret photoshoots (Yea sometimes you have to be like an agent -  but it pays of because the expressions of the people are more natural - storytelling right?). You can buy this work via link down below. 

Here's the final product on A4 watercolour paper painted with Gouache. 

 "Will she give me any sugar?" (Gouache on watercolour paper A4)

http://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/639227

How I painted barber shop...

It was the 8th of August this year when I've been in the city centre of Leeds chasing my new subject matter for my new project (It's necessary to get exited about your subject, otherwise you setting yourself up for failure). After unsuccessful time in streets (which is not that often because streets of Leeds are filled with interesting topics for painting - I just didn't feel it that day) I discovered this great barber shop right in Corn Exchange called King Koby Chop Shop: 

http://kingkoby.com

These guys are cool lads who know how to trim and the environment in their shop is just stunning. I politely asked them If I can make some pictures and made my camera clicking like hell. 

After 2 minutes (Yes I didn't want to be inconvenient there) I had a bunch of reference pictures:

Reference shoots for my project

After making these pictures I went on my holidays and when I get back in September my work begun. I stared with some preliminary sketches to have a feel for my subject matter. I wanted the picture to have a little spark of caricature but not too overwhelming - something similar to work of Norman Rockwell whom I admire. I love his pictures of people and I strove to do something similar.

On these pictures you can see sketch on the left (to warm myself up for a painting process) and finished "underdrawing" on board already prepared for painting itself on the right. I chose not to over exaggerate the characters. 

Some preliminary work

And finally there's the final product. It's a fairy big painting (28x20 inches) I took me about 2 weeks to finish it - mainly because I had to do it after work so I had like 2 to 3 hours a day. I wasn't in a rush either so I listened to the radio whilst painting it. The process itself was really relaxing due to fairly finished underdrawing which I didn't change throughout the process. To be sure that the drawing was gonna guide me all the time I put a graphite fixative on it before I started with painting. The name of the painting is "Don't worry mate I've got that under control"  - you know why - sometimes even the most trustworthy person with a trimmer behind your head could cause you to have a tough times :-D

But don't worry -  It is just for a sake of a interesting name of the painting. These guys trim properly! 

So I suggest when you're in Leeds with some wilderness on top of your precious yourself give the guys a try!

"Don't worry mate I've got that under control" (oil on board 28x20 Inches)

If you would be interested to purchase this piece, write me an email. 

Have a nice boxing day everyone. Hope your Christmas are quiet and peaceful like mine.

Petr

!Selling art!

From now on you can purchase my work via pages http://www.dailypaintworks.com

My first item to buy is called "Security" and here's the link:

http://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/635653

More items will come in the future