LUMEN 9

A detailed breakdown from rough sketch to finished painting

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Nov 10, 2024

A consistent piece of advice I’ve been hearing in the arts community this week is to keep creating. Even when the world gets turned upside down, you have to paint or write or do whatever it is that is your creative outlet and passion. Add something to the world to distract you from what’s going on, and if you can occupy others as well that’s all the better.

A few weeks ago we featured Michael’s illustration process in “Taking Flight.” This week Michael walks us through a gallery painting from start to finish. ~ME

Three photos of the toned canvas on the easel. In the left and right Michael is drawing in lines with charcoal. The center image features an unobstructed view of the drawing on canvas. The structure twists over and through the opening in the wall taking the shape of the number 9. — Charcoal application

This painting originated from an idea that I brought home with me from the hospital in May of 2000. When the idea came to me, the only thing I had to draw on was an advisory pamphlet for patients, so I used the back of it for a rough sketch of the composition. I carried the idea in my head for years afterwards and didn’t get around to executing the painting until ten years later.

Contrary to my usual practice, I began this one without doing any color sketches or other preliminary work other than the rough sketch I had brought home from the hospital. I started to draw the shapes on to the canvas with a charcoal stick. The canvas was already toned a light blue-grey color.

More detail on the toned canvas charcoal drawing. Irregular rectangular panels have been sketched onto the wall. — Charcoal sketch on canvas

To make the transfer of the shapes more accurate I enlarged the image on my computer and printed a copy at the same size as the canvas. In these photos, you can see the printout clamped to a piece of cardboard for me to use as my “model”.

After drawing in the major shapes I sprayed fixatif on it to keep the lines from smearing while I painted over it. I masked off the small door/window at the lower right and loosely painted a darker blue gray tone to separate the inner and outer spaces.

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Three photos side by side of the painting in progress in the larger space of Michael's oil studio. From left to right, the painting is more defining moving from very few lines defining the structure, to more contrast, to a photo realistic finish. In each photo there is a blown up sketch displayed on another easel next to the painting. — LUMEN 9 with blown up reference sketch

The photos above with the blown up reference sketch was taken after I darkened the inner space and pulled off the masking tape.

Once I get a good amount of color on to the canvas, I often make adjustments by drawing directly onto the surface with a charcoal or pastel pencil. Pastel pencils are especially handy because you can draw on the painting surface with a color which fits in the color scheme you are working in, and the paint going over those lines blends in seamlessly with the pastel.

Two photos side featuring two paintings in progress. On the left, the concrete platform of SEAWALL is painted in but the water hasn't been rendered. The charcoal sketch on canvas for LUMEN 9 can be seen partially cropped in the foreground right. In the photo on the right, SEAWALL and LUMEN 9 are much farther along with the structures but no figures yet in place. — SEAWALL and LUMEN 9 in various stages of progress

At this stage SEAWALL and the LUMEN 9 are both about half done. I would spend a day working on the oil painting, then while that layer dried I would be working on the Lumen painting, which was in acrylics.

I thought I was close to finished, but after looking at the LUMEN 9 a while I decided I didn’t like the regularity of the rectangular shapes in the background. I later painted them out and replaced them with a more disorganized and erratic complex of lines instead.

Three photos of Michael at work on Lumen 9. He's standing up while using a curved metal ruler to help define the panels on the wall of the painting. In the middle photo, he's kneeling so he can work lower on the painting which is resting on the floor leaning against a stand. In the last photo, the canvas is turned on his easel so he work on the lower right corner of the painting which is oriented at the bottom on his easel. — Further progress on LUMEN 9

I’m holding a curved aluminum ruler made for tailors and clothes designers, which come in three different shapes. I find them more useful than ship’s curves or plastic French curves…and there were a lot of curves to draw in this painting!

As in all my Lumen works, the essential metaphor is that of a figure making his or her way past great obstacles towards an opening, a source of light.

Two pictures of LUMEN 9 as a work in progress with the structure defined photo realistically but the figure is a boy sitting atop and the walls are uniform concrete panels. The image to the right is zoomed in to provide close detail of the boy who has his back to the audience as he works on the boards of the structure. He's wearing a shirt with a star on the back. — Initial figure placement

Initially, I painted in a boy on the top of the structure but decided I didn’t like the pose or the placement of the figure. Both fell short of my expectations. After some reflection, I painted him out.

LEFT: Sketch book pages with the right featuring a young woman with long hair reaching out to rest her hand on the boards of a makeshift railing. RIGHT: Detail from the final painting showing the young woman wearing jeans and a red striped shirt. — Figure sketch and detail from LUMEN 9

Then on a marvelous morning in May, I walked into my studio and saw in my mind’s eye exactly how the figure should be. After another day or two of painting it was finally completed.