Freyja Comes to Life

"Freyja"

This is the image I chose to paint in La Strade Dell' Arte.
It is 'Freyja' the Norse goddess of love.

Based on the proportions of this painting I decided on a 15 x 10 foot street painting.  The first thing I did was take the image into Photoshop and made the file 15 x 10 inches.  Then using Photoshops line tool I created a grid by drawing a line on every inch mark.  Then I printed the whole image on 13 x 19 inch photo paper.  If you are not able to print this size you can 'fit to paper'  when you do to print and it will fit your image on whatever size paper you have.  This way your image and grid will be scaled together  automatically. 

Lastly I cut and paste anything I need close ups of onto a new file.  I scale them up so that I have a better detailed view of them all while painting.  This is a must for me.  I like to have more detail than I will include so that I may suggest it on the street.

The Festival

Here is a board the festival put up near my painting.  This is nice because it not only includes an image of the painting I was doing, the title, but also a description of the paintings subject.  This was nice because people could read about the image before viewing the street painting and saved me from having to explain it several times over the course of the weekend.  Don't get me wrong, talking to viewers is one of my favorite parts of street painting but explaining the same thing over and over can be a little less than fun ;)

Step 1:  Measure

So I arrived on Friday morning and found my 10 x 15 foot square.  The festival draws out the squares ahead of time so artists can begin first thing when they arrive. To begin the gridding process I lay out a tape measure along one side of the square and mark each foot.  In this case it was 15 feet on two sides and 10 feet on the other two sides.  Try and be precise as possible when marking the feet so that your grid lines will be perfectly square. 

Step 2: Grid

Once they are all marked out I can begin with my chalk line.  Here are pictures of my grid after I chalked the lines.  The 10 x 15 foot square creates 150 square feet of image to cover.  This is slightly larger than a 12 x 12 foot square which would be 144 square feet.

Step 3:  The Drawing

Once my grid is finished I begin the drawing.  I always begin with the face of the main figure and work out from there.  I try and move from the top down so that I do not have to sit on my work if I don't have to.

Step4:  Painting

I begin painting the face of Freyja.  I usually start with the forhead of the face and continue down to the eyes, nose, cheeks and mouth.  I had two assistants helping me with the background sky.  They did a great job painting in a nice gradation from a sea blue to white.  The colors are brighter than in the original painting.  I like to pump up the colors a bit from the original because over the couse of the weekend the wind will blow and colors will fade. 

I continue to paint through the neck and down to the drapery.  The drapery usually goes pretty quick for me because it doesn't have to look exactly like the original.  It just has to suggest the same movement and character.  You can compare what I painted to the original image to see that I have painted the cream colored cloth similar to the original but not exact.

My first Cherub was a nice warm up for the 5 others I needed to paint.  You can see that I started with the top of the head and worked down into the neck.  You can see in the 3rd picture that I am painting the areas of the cherub that are closest to the 'Freyja' figure so that I can continue out and down from the central figure. 

'Freyja's' skirt was an easy break from the figures.  Again, because it is fabric it doesn't have to be exactly like the original image.  I like to work fairly quickly on the drapery because it is very forgiving and allows me to make up some time if I fussed too much with the figures.   

The second cherub was pretty quick and easy because it was a profile.  Profiles are always much easier.  The body was also a quick paint. I enjoy large areas of skin.  Little chubby cherubs are fabric free and have all those subtle shifts of luscious colors.

This is as far as I was able to get before the rain started. Luckily I have the photos to remember it by.

Comments

[joel]

Hola!

Now I understand why you had to be on the computer all the time...to update this wonderful journal/blog/site!

Firstly, you had done a fab job once again! No surprise there. On my drive to San Jose at about 3 pm it was pouring and thought...hmmmm I wonder if still dry in Napa but i was talking to Arn and he said it was already raining in Santa Rosa....I guess you got it probably about the same time....so sorry it had to be a rainy weekend!

Hope you're having fun and luck with the weather in Santa Barbara. See you soon!

Good hanging out with you!

-J

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