48. Day, December 28, 2018


Let's get to the cloth - or the woolen scarf - which carries "Aksinja" around her shoulders!

Here's a color-still from the movie ...:




We see a fabric in which the colors yellow-orange and bordeaux dominate and - at first glance - a rather confused-looking pattern ...

Since the scarf makes up the largest surface of the figure, so it will look pretty prominent, I have thought intensively about the color scheme.

I have the "free choice", as it were (and are!) many of such scarves in abundance.

The things are called in Russia "Кичка" (= Kitschka ").

"Aksinja" will get a scarf dominated by two basic colors:

A yellow-orange border (as in the picture above), as well as a bordeaux-colored main surface, as can be seen here ...:


Of course, the scarf will not remain bicoloured, but (I must be crazy!) will be covered with intricate patterns!

As for the patterns, I have picked out two templates that are Slavic and from the time of 18./19. Century which are called in Russia "огурец узор" ("ogurets uzor" = "cucumber pattern").

Where "cucumber" may be a bit misleading (but really is called!)! The "cucumber" is this amoebic thing here that appears in these old patterns ...:


I've dug up half of the internet and my entire fund and decided on these patterns:

The orange border should look like this ...

... and the dark red main surface like this...:


This will be a pagan work!

But since - to say it with Sun Tzu - a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, today I painted the edge of the scarf.

Pretty complicated color - especially since I have used the "Krapplack deep" only in traces, because the stuff tends to shine ...:


Photographing today's result is just a matter of luck once again it is very dark outside, because the clouds practically hang down to the roof ...:




Next week it will go on here...
Have a nice weekend!
Cheers

49. Day, January 2, 2019

Between Christmas and the New Year's Eve, I had a small break - which has turned out to be a stroke of luck!


Maybe you know that, too:

Somehow I was dissatisfied with my last steps, but - to my annoyance - could not name the reason for the dissatisfaction.

Something was wrong! But what?

The whole thing changed in one fell swoop when, two days before New Year's Eve, I caught up with the original movie adaptation of the Tolstoy classic "War and Peace" from 1956 on television.

There is not a single prop in the film, nothing is really russian - nevertheless, the atmosphere of the Tolstoy classic is much closer than the film's remake of 2014!

And at the scene where Natasha Rostowa (Audrey Hepburn) in the winter camp of Tarutino is looking for "her" Andrej Bolkonski (Mel Ferrer) badly wounded at Borodino ...




The color gradient of the scarf, which my "Aksinja" wears around the shoulders, is fundamentally wrong!

Let's briefly recap:

"Aksinja" warms up with a patterned dark red wool scarf with an orange border, which she wears around her shoulders like a stole.

For this purpose, the - actually square or rectangular - cloth in the middle "folded over corner" to a triangle ...




... and then put around the shoulders.

The visible edge is then on the back on the lower side and forms a "V" ...:



From the front, the whole looks something like this:



If you then - as "Aksinja" makes it - pull the scarf in front of the chest with your hands, there is also the visible edge at the bottom!

And where did I paint it?

To the neck ...



... and right and left of the section ...:



And he does not belong there! A mistake of thinking so!

Hardly anyone would have noticed this mistake - but I knew it was there! And with time I ONLY have seen this error and nothing else - unfortunately I know myself very well!

Fortunately, I did not start the pattern with the holiday break, so that today's correction effort was limited.


So I did "everything back down", scratched out acrylic paints and painted a new - and this time the right - color gradient ...:









And suddenly the bust looks a lot "calmer" - and the beautiful pattern on the blouse comes even better now ...

So much for today.


Cheers

50. and 51. Day, December 3 and 4, 2019


Yesterday and today I "dipped" the dark red area of "Aksinjas" scarf in oils!

After several mixing experiments I did it without "Krapplack deep" - because this color becomes too "red" and too "gaudy" for me.

Also "titanium white" I have retired, because that was definitely too "chalky"!

Instead, my red is just those colors ...:




While painting I had to "watch out!" with the "Prussian Blue", because this color is highly dominant!

The result is a dark red, which on the one hand lies very close to the color that I had originally chosen ...



... and that, on the other hand, blends in well with the blouse and - despite the heavy drapery on the front - looks very calm and thus gives a good "carrier" for the planned pattern ...:















With the pattern I will continue next week - for the time the red, which is still very shiny, should now be allowed to dry in peace ...
Nice weekend to you all!
Cheers

Two pic from today:

The oil colors are not so shiny anymore - and the lights and shadows are now better to recognize ...






Cheers

You were right to use Prussian blue carefully, and avoid the white...white dulls too many colours and the blue is very high tinting strength...dries well though, and help go matte

Only naturally, for I have often heard that "fast drying" in a box "level" the lights and shadows of some colors - for example, red and yellow ...

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52. and 53. Day, January 7 an 8, 2019


Damned by a computer problem to offline life, I have yesterday and until now only paint, but here can show nothing!

Now I finally can - what show!

Yesterday I started with the pattern of "Aksinjas" scarf!

In the process, I decided to first make a section on the back - and approach the pattern step by step.
I will have to find a middle ground between "simplifiable simplification", "much too cluttered" and "way too simplistic".

In addition, I have decided to pre-draw absolutely nothing or even to use stencils. Everything should arise freehand!

Well, what I can show today is little more than a start yet hard wip ...:






When I painted - first - the dark brown borders of the "cucumbers" and the first yellow lines, "Aksinja" looked like a Tiger tank with Afrika Korps camouflage ...

But that's how slow it gets ...

Tomorrow we will continue ...
Cheers

Next step..get some shading in those patterns so they don’t float off the fabric

The shadows I will paint to the pattern at least with oils...


Cheers

Indeed a wash or very thin oil high/low light...take care tho the pattern doesn’t then sink too much..

54. Day, January 8, 2019


Very slowly the pattern begins to resemble the original!

These complicated "cucumbers" really force me to slow down and care ...:



Cheers

Needs dulling a lot and somehow a colour tie to the rest of the shawl..it’s unnaturally saturated: would a woman wear a shawl Ike that and would the style be consistent with level of economic and social status? I’d think about your oil wash now, and then some final it’s of yellow or gold as thread details but not everywhere.

Cossacks were small and larger landowners, farmers and horse breeders and no poor people! The Don area, where they lived, was one of the wealthiest areas in ancient Russia.

Not least because of this, resistance to the Bolsheviks and their revolution was strongest there and lasted as longest. So the scarf fits absolutely to her social status!

Old photos (taken between 1910 and 1916)...:





Paintings the same times...:





And modern times...:





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55. Day, January 10, 2019

Further on...:








Cheers

Bit by bit its coming together nicely Martin!

Joe