8 in. x 10 in., acrylic on black canvas
NFS
This was a gift for my son and daughter-in-law's sixth wedding anniversary. I painted it from a candid photo taken by a beloved family member during a quiet moment between the two of them at their wedding reception. They had stepped out onto the porch of the park house for a breather and this one image snapped quickly seemed to capture a forward-looking, prayer-prepared journey that God had called them into together. These two. We love them.
The painting itself was a fun (and scary) experiment on black canvas. I wanted to create a piece that felt like a stylized poster illustration, something like a stained-glass look. The black ground ensured that I could cut in areas of paint closely but intentionally separated in many areas to achieve this kind of leaded border effect. I enjoyed the intensity of the way the color popped, and how easily the shadows and muted areas seemed to paint themselves. Of course, this meant having to work a little harder (read: more white from the tube) to achieve the lightest lights. Additionally, I needed to slightly rearrange and even remove some of the park elements for the best and most streamlined composition. Keep the focus on the couple (and not on the less-than-fetching park benches and clumpy hostas cluttering up the background)!
I took care with the proportions and placement
of the elements of the composition, and drew the
initial paint sketch with a small round brush in
diluted burnt sienna. Then I laid down the first
blocking in of basic color areas with a wide, blunt
brush, leaving black borders in the areas where
I wanted them to stay. The groom, clad in black
trousers and vest, is still a large area of open,
black canvas.
I tightened up the shapes and sky holes of the far line of trees, intensified the slightly burned summer grass in the distant field with a golden wash, and better defined the middle ground of the park pathways. The porch deck will be lightened with the gray of aging planks, but the reddish brown of the porch paint job will need to show through later, so I laid this color in. The distant blue-green of the sky and treeline is hazy and cool, just the way I wanted it, but the green of the near lawn is of the same temperature and not warm enough.
Overpainting the green of the foreground lawn in a much warmer, yellower green changed the whole feel of the painting. It brought the lawn closer and popped the couple forward toward the viewer. It also pushed the hazy, cool horizon further into the distance and created a longer visual space. Much better.
The groom's black clothing needed to come to life. I mixed a dark, dusky violet with pthalo blue, cadmium red and alizarin crimson and, when painted on the flat black canvas, became a deep, glossy color that your eye reads as a satiny blue-black with depth and dimension. With the deep cool blue strokes of fabric folds, he comes to life. The porch starts to age, and the folds of the wedding gown get some treatment.
The "unfortunate tangent" of the intersection between the sharply curving path and the upper porch rail has to be altered. They visually track very close to each other, and, although accurate to the photo, is awkward here. If I can remove picnic tables, benches and shrubs that don't really need to be cluttering up the painting, I can also chose to alter the trajectory of a garden path. I've got the paintbrush. I'm in charge here!
And... there's a pathway that visually makes more sense to the viewer and breaks up the green foreground. I worked some definition into the hands, railings, porch planks, and punched up the sky. A significant bit of fiddling with the bride's wedding gown, and a slight rusty gold wash over the freaky hot green of the near lawn, and I'll call game on this one.
Happy anniversary, Dave and Dorothy. Look what God did.
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