Speaking of Art Blog

Epic Turkey Tale, pastel, 19x18", commission

This is my latest pastel.  It is LARGE and was very hard to render, probably my most difficult animal/bird portrait ever.  The definition of an epic is, “A large body of work that can be broken down into smaller stories.”  Yep, that’s this turkey.  Look at all the smaller “stories” it has in those feather sections.  Some of those unique sections practically drove me to simply give up.  I figure it took me about 35 hours to create this turkey, and that’s not counting the time to preliminarily research tom turkeys and study their structure, and then tweak one of my reference photos I took 3 years ago of some Gould’s turkeys at Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon, AZ.  During the whole process of creating this painting, while methodically adding row after row after row of feathers, I gave some thought to the rules I have now formulated for when I create another epic in the future.  Here they are:

 1.      If you are a photo realist like myself, USE YOUR OWN REFERENCE PHOTOS and only supplement with photos from online.  My photos were so valuable to not only see super high res details, but also to revisit the context of this particular turkey.  I had to go back a few times to my original photos to see the coloring of background greenery, gravel on the ground, and even the structure of the turkey’s feet and legs.  If I had used a single image from someone else, I couldn’t have gleaned enough extra info I needed to inform my creative decisions along the way.  Even for a commission, whenever possible use your own photos, and the more photos to refer to, the better.

 2.      Take frequent breaks when doing tedious work.  I’ll admit it, this became very tedious at times.  When there’s a lot of detail it’s hard to stay focused on the big picture.  So, whenever I felt like just getting the job done more quickly and sloughing off with accuracy, that’s when I told myself I needed to take a gigantic break and step away from my studio.  I usually went for a hike to clear my mind.  Sometimes I let a whole day go by without coming near the painting.  Then when I stepped back in front of it again, I’d be like, “Oh hello gorgeous, how are you today?”  And then I’d fall in love with the whole piece again instead of grousing about some little corner that was driving me nuts.  As my husband likes to say, “You eat the elephant (or in my case, the turkey) one bite at a time”.

 3.      This sort of goes along with #2, but it’s slightly different.  Take the time to sharpen those pastel pencils.  Don’t get sloppy with your equipment.  Sloppy equipment goes hand in hand with sloppy results.  Take the time to clean off a dusty point on a pastel stick or pencil when that non-descript color is about to go on your surface and you know it needs cleaning off first.  It does make a difference, and in the long run it saves time.  Stay neat.

 4.      If the piece is going to be epic and you are taking frequent breaks to stay sane, it’s best to jot down some color notes to yourself about what colors you’re using where.  I came up with this rule by hard knocks during this painting.  I had worked my way down to the bottom left corner and had completed the ground cover and the shadow under the turkey just past its foot and leg.  Then I went all the way back up to the top right of the paper and worked my way down along the right-hand column of the entire painting.  By the time I got back down to the remaining part of the shadow and ground cover, I had no idea which blues, oranges, and greens I had used for the shadow.  Yes, I had all my colors I was using setting apart from the rest of my pastels, but there were still so many to choose from.  I panicked.  I tried several color swatches on a test piece of paper and came up with something that sort of resembled the same color and I tried that.  It didn’t quite match.  I wound up spending an ungodly amount of time reworking that shadow on both the left and right of the leg and foot so that they’d match.  Ugh.  Never again will I assume I can remember which 3 pastels sticks I used for one 4-inch square section when I was taking frequent day-long breaks so that I could forget about the painting altogether at intervals.  Next time when I start an epic, I will make color notes for each story, especially if I don’t finish a story in one session.

 5.      Optional: Reward yourself along the way when you finish each story of an epic.  Go take an ice cream break, play with your pet, call a friend and gab, sit and veg in front of something on the TV.  Remember when you used to earn a sticker for a job well done in grade school and how good you felt?  Give yourself some stickers along the way.  You’re creating an epic.  You deserve some stickers.  Then at the end, step back and shout, “I did it, I created an epic! Woohoo, gobble gobble gobble!  I just ate a whole turkey.”