Long Gone

I was flicking through one of my Jean Haines books last night for inspiration and decided to do something in her style today.  the subject matter for this one is something I’ve had in the ideas pile for a while.  It’s a highly sunlit shot of Devon Allman with his guitar in the video to Long Gone by the Allman Betts Band – the song that they’ll be playing at my funeral if I have any say in the matter.

Colours for this one were Winsor orange, permanent rose, French ultramarine and Winsor violet.  With Winsor orange serving as a warm yellow, this was in the key of purple warm.

I started by painting Devon’s back, using all four colours in quite a pale variegated mix.  I dropped thicker versions of individual colours into their watery versions in places (a Jean Haines idea).  Then I dragged the colours to the right, facing them out to a soft edge before I got to where the front of Devon’s body was.  Oh, except that I negatively painted the edge of the guitar with a hard edge.  Some bits of Devon I dragged off towards the top right and turned into the sky, using all four colours.  And I threw loads of salt onto Devon as he dried.

Then there was the foreground, painted again in a variegated mix but this time without the violet and with not as much of the red, so getting a greeny sort of colour.  I tried to vary the temperature by having more blue on the right and more yellow and red on the left.  I threw on salt and put some French stick wrapper on top and tried to scrunch it into patterns (the Jean Haines “Venetian technique”).

The last bits to be added were the background trees on the other side of the water (warmer on the left, colder and fainter on the right), some shimmers in the water (only on the left) and a little bit of detail on the near end of the guitar.  There are also some very light marks in the river – most of these I did using a brush rinsed out in the dirty water!

And then I stopped.  Job done.  There’s not much of the guitar there but there’s enough to know it’s there and it’s good to let the viewer do some of the work.

This was a successful painting.  The mix of hard and soft edges is just right.  The missing bits are a new style for me and have worked out well.  The colours are great.  The way Devon’s head blends into the sky is amazing.  I could be accused of using too much salt, I guess, but that’s a petty minor problem.

This one’s up for sale.