Astute 2 – Painting techniques

I have started on the painting stage of Astute 2. I started laying in the white paint that makes the skylight windows. I then have to mix a huge number of colors and lay them in. The weather is very hot at the moment and it is incredibly difficult keeping the paint from drying out but also not to over water them (I use a water-bottle sprayer) to a watercolor consistency. The floor with it’s inground tracks has been laid in with a thin wash of paint, but other areas have an opaque layer of paint. Many of the colors aren’t quite right, it’s a layer by layer correctional process I employ, it’s tediously slow but it works. I have spent 16 hours painting the image below. In total the hour mark is at 90 hours.

early stages of painting of BAE systems

I am at the 100 hour mark (image below). It takes a lot of time with such a complex painting – the colors are so subtly different, and I have a limited amount of money, so I can’t waste too much paint.

Photorealist painting techniques

I am now at the 120 hour mark after a period of painting only a few hours a week.

120 hours of work

Photorealist painting – Astute 1

Chromacolour acrylic on MDF board. 60x45cm. Completed 23 January 2012. Time taken – 82 hours.

Astute 1 - Hyperrealist painting
The HMS Astute is a nuclear-powered submarine in the Royal Navy. It is an outstanding achievement of modern engineering. Her builders BAE systems boast that it is “the largest and most able attack submarine that the Royal Navy has operated, with a performance to rival any in the world”. HMS Astute was launched on 8th June 2007 and this photo was taken by Christopher Morgan-Jones. The submarine is 323 feet long has a beam of 37 feet and a draught of 33 feet. It also weighs 7400 tonnes. She is capable of hitting 29 knots (54 kph) and has a crew of 98. The HMS Astute is nuclear powered and its powerplant never needs refueling and the limitation for time away from port comes down to the supply of food on board. Her service life is 25 years.

The HMS Astute is capable of destroying other ships and submarines with torpedo’s as well as launching her Raytheon Tomahawk Block III land-attack cruise missile’s. These missiles utilise high explosive warheads and not nuclear warheads. The Tomahawks can fly 2,500 km at 880 kph. This makes the HMS Astute a formidable weapon.

Please note – due to me using a $99 camera there is a slight color shift in the image. It appears slightly cooler than in real life. I will try and update the image.

The drawing can be seen here.

The techniques used can be seen here.

Astute 1 – Painting techniques

The painting of hyperrealism is often a long process and requires a lot of skill and some patience. After completing the drawing, I decided to fill in the biggest single color, or in this case range of colors, which is the sky background. Then I started to lay in with a thin wash of color the submarine itself along with the tarpaulin and English flag that are draped across the nose of the submarine.

HMS Astute - Photorealist painting - early stages

The next stage is to lay in some of the myriad of colors that make up the rest of the image.

HMS Astute - Photorealist painting - early stages

And some more work..the HMS Astute starts to appear more real.

HMS Astute - Photorealist painting - intermediate stages

And some more – to bring the work up to the stage where just about the entire MDF board has some sort of color. This is only a laying in of initial colors for most parts, however some areas are quite complex and you are forced to paint them with a little more accuracy than the broader areas.

HMS Astute - Photorealist painting - intermediate stages

At the 50 hour mark you can see that I have started some of the detail work of the hull of the submarine.

Photorealist painting of HMS Astute

The work doesn’t seem to progress much at this stage (60 hours) but that’s because there are a multitude of what I call color & spatial corrections. This refers to the abstract nature of hyperrealist painting. There are some things that I have decided to modify slightly from the source image - often they are just to make the composition ‘read’ easier or due to the low resolution of the original I don’t understand exactly what ‘it’ is. There is one part where I have used other images to decipher what exactly ‘it’ is – the front beam, painted in blue has the words “Astute” but the source reveals nothing of the small text below. So I have added in the following URL – www.royalnavy.mod.uk.  This is extremely difficult requiring not a OOO brush but a 10/0.

Hyperrealist painting of HMS Astute - Work In Progress

And now I am on the home run at 70 hours.

HMS Astute - photorealist painting

The painting was completed after 82 hours and can be seen here.

Gildemeister DMC 160 FD duoBLOCK

Chromacolour acrylic on MDF board. 80x59cm. Completed 21st November 2010. For Sale.

Gildemeister DMC 160 FD duoBlock

As a contemporary painter I get to deal with the idea (conceptual art) and the visual (realist art). Most people, whether from the general public or from the ‘art world’ what be perplexed by my paintings of technology. Their primary purpose is to communicate the ideas of power, wealth, consumerism and cutting edge technology. The machine tool shown here is powerful, expensive and used in manufacturing large, expensive objects. It is quite literally the ultimate sculpting tool for the most successful breed of artists of modern society – the industrial designer.

I love painting the surface of objects, as it is always a technical challenge. This particular painting is not quite perfect, it’s hue is slightly more towards the green side of blue than what I would have liked. I am not too fussed however as I found the original was too much towards purple for my liking. My paintings are also becoming more painterly as well, and this is a deliberate move. They are still very photorealistic, it’s just that when you take a good look, up close you can see evidence of the brushstrokes that created the work.

This work is for sale. It is offered at $1000 Aus.  Serious enquiries only by contacting the artist.

Expensive Tools

Acrylic on MDF board. 60x90cm. Completed 25th March 2002. For sale.

Expensive tools

This shows Honda formula one engines being machined at the Mugen factory in Japan. I wanted to turn this image into an example of my ultra contemporary, conceptual view of the world the moment I saw it. This was a predecessor to the DMG work. I prefer doing artwork like this than say flowers or portraits. Photorealism can, and should cover, any and all subjects.

Racecar Engineering contributed the original for this painting, to be called Expensive Tools. It features a trio of Makino CNC Machining Centres linked by a common palette loader which were producing Formula 1 engines and cylinder heads. The scene is in a factory – Mugen’s in Japan. The painting is visually exciting but also embodies the conceptual in that the process of painting photorealism is very much like the machinery. Accuracy being the key to verisimilitude is represented in a painting of a machine that is accurate down to 1/1000th of a millimeter! The time spent painting the details was incredible, an example being the series of holes in the lower right – they took 35 hours! All up the work took 224 hours.

I feel that art which goes beyond straight realism and has a conceptual element to it is all the more powerful for it. I often look to Dutch art of the seventeenth century and it’s all encompassing view of daily life even to be an incredible inspiration. A perfect example of this is Rembrandt’s painting of a cows carcass. This sort of painting would most typically have been purchased by a butcher, as the art was reasonably affordable. Expensive Tools would best be appreciated if it were to be purchased and displayed by an engineering company. Whether they would understand and appreciate the metaphor I intended to make with the practice of producing my work is another matter.

Color matching isn’t the easiest thing to do in order to capture a photorealistic likeness. My painting is better lit than the printed image. I believe that when you improve upon the starting point you have understood the role of the camera. It is just a tool and it’s limitations can be surpassed. Some photorealist painters say this is where it then becomes hyperrealism. I personally don’t like art to be strictly classified. The two terms just become starting points for the viewer and great art always transcends these simplistic classifications.

This work is for sale. It is offered at $1000 Aus.  Serious enquiries only by contacting the artist.

Deckel Maho Gildemeister

Acrylic on MDF board. 90x128cm. Completed 30th September 2009. For Sale.

Deckel Maho Gildemeister

This work is a combination of photorealist painting and conceptual art. I believe it to be a first. I am trying to use the CNC machine as a metaphor for accuracy. It is a work I am very proud of.

The idea behind this piece is to return to comparisons between the photorealism in my art and the extraordinary accuracy and repeatability of CNC (computer numerical control) machinery with the process of my work. DMG (Deckel Maho Gildemeister) are a company of the highest quality; a quality that I consider to be at the cornerstone of my art. This machine is the most capable of all types of milling machines due to it being 5 sided, 5 axis in its ability. Essentially it can machine almost any shape and this particular machine is also extremely fast, powerful and it’s price is well in excess of the million dollar mark.

I am very proud of this work because it does set new standards for my work. The painting of the lettering is incredibly difficult.

When people look at this work I want them to take the time to read the description and the table of specifications, then look closely at the precision of the individual letters, then gaze at the images. I want them to take it all in, then wonder why someone would paint something like this. I hope many would arrive at the conclusion that it must be important to the artist. And it is, I want people to understand that this work is actually talking about people’s art judgements. Much of the ‘art world’ haven’t a clue when it comes to one of the most important subjects for an artist – his technique. It’s almost never discussed in the contemporary art world and if it is probably because generally speaking contemporary artists have little skill when it comes down to the truth of the matter.

This work is for sale. It is offered at $2000 Aus.  Serious enquiries only by contacting the artist.

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