February, 2015 | Chris Cook Artist

Viewing Stages of a Painting, Three

This painting is from the FARM Art Show at the Madison Morgan Cultural Center in late 2014.

The show paired artist to a specific farm in Morgan County. I choose the Lambert Farm.

The original idea for this painting and all 6 paintings I did for the show, came to me after talking with Robyn, my wife about painting Lambert Farm as a number of different American Modern Artist… and I ran out to my studio and made a color pencil sketch to capture the idea quickly.

Below is the original color pencil.

This painting ended up on a 6 foot wide by 4 foot tall canvas. This is the painting in progress on the large canvas. Note the color copy of a second study I did in Adobe Illustrator taped to the upper right of the canvas for reference.

I have added details, see below. I used a gutter cover that had uniform holes in it to prevent objects from falling into your gutters to start the dot pattern in the sky… what a nightmare. I painted and repainted those dots!

Below is the finished painting that was in the FARM Art Exhibit.

Enjoy,

Chris Cook

Viewing Stages of a Painting, Two

Here is one of my favorite paintings… really love the concept of taking a Picasso painting of a Spanish tragedy and using the painting look and style to tell the story of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald on Television on the 60s.

This is the third and largest version of the painting I have made. It is 6 foot wide and 4 foot tall.

First I used the 9 grid system to transfer the underlying composition/drawing. Here I have started roughing in the painting… getting the figure and ground separated.

This next image you can see that I am defining the characters faces and bodies and making the background more solid.

Below I have added more details. The background is more formed. Notice some of the earlier details were whited out to start over.

Below is the finished painting.

This painting is not for sale – I may be dreaming, but… my idea is to donate this to the Georgia Museum in Athens, Georgia or the Morris Museum in Augusta, Georgia.

Enjoy,

Chris Cook

Viewing Stages of a Painting, One

I have had questions over time about how I work (how an artist works really). I do sometimes take quick snap shots of different points I get to in a painting. I am doing a little series of posts that will show some of the stages a single painting goes through as I develop a work. I do have different starting points… sometimes pencil sketches on paper, or a small painting on paper first before going to a larger format. But, like with the example below of “Matthew Listening by Candlelight” I started with an overall wash of a dull color. After it dried, I took a smaller brush and dipped it in some left over brown and started drawing from a photo reference right on the canvas.

The next day, I went out to my studios and mixed brown and dark blue together to make a near black and with a pretty wide, flat brush laid in all the darkest parts away from the imaginary candle light source. (the photo reference was a man sitting outside in bright daylight). I used a mix of yellow oxide and gray to dab at the highlights.

After that, I used the three previous color mixes and filled in the rest of his face. Finally a sloppy wet mix of medium dark to tone the entire canvas down giving it the old candlelight look!

Enjoy.

Chris