More progress on the young Icarus’ abs:

Asher tells me he doesn’t even work out.   How is that fair?

I finally got around to finishing the rock.  This may actually be my first somewhat accurate painting of a specific rock…a portrait of sorts.  So, next time you’re hanging around Reservoir Park in Salt Lake and you come across a largish rock in the middle of the playground and think to yourself, “I’ve seen this before…this means something…this is important”, you either recognize my fine likeness of this geological specimen, or you’re having a ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ moment.

And now on to a much easier portrait: the young Icarus.  At least he’s somewhat symmetrical, and far less craggy.  I’m working a little rough at this point, especially on the hair, with the intention of pulling everything into better focus once all the flesh tones are in place.  I’m using the color string method I used for ‘Muse and Medium’ again, still trying to decide if I like it more or less than the under-painting-with-color-over-the-top method I used on ‘Deliberation’.  The one distinct advantage to this technique is that it allows me far more opportunities to break up a larger figure into pieces that can be finished in a reasonable workday.  Who knows, I may end up finding some hybrid of the two processes that works even better.

Need I say more?

Just a quick update today.  I made a little more progress on the big rock in the foreground.  My landlady is a hardcore geolgist, and she likes it so far…I choose to take that as a good sign.

Just for fun, here’a a shot of the painting in my newly cleaned and organized studio.  ‘Muse and Medium’ is still drying in the background.

Remember that game?  I loved that game.  That’s not what this post is all about however.  As long as I’ve got Icarus on the brain, but am not yet positioned to jump in to the larger painting, I’m going to work on a related composition that occurred to me while reading up on the story.  As the story goes, Daedalus begins work on the wings when Icarus is a young boy…four or five years old.  It took him ten years to complete them, making Icarus around fourteen years old at the time of his flight.  I have a five year old myself, who is often underfoot in the studio while I am working, and I can easily imagine Daedalus in a similar situation.  In fact, one account of the story mentions Icarus playing with the feathers in Daedalus’ workshop.  If I were Daedalus, I would entertain my son, and get him mentally prepared for his eventual escape by fashioning a doll with wings for him to pretend with…and identify with.  I’ve seen the way Asher plays with his toy airplanes and rockets, and I thought Icarus as a boy flying his winged doll would make an excellent painting.  Asher, of course, modeled for Icarus.  I also found images online of  figurines made as toys for the children of ancient Greece, so the doll (let’s be honest here…the action figure) in the painting will be based on those designs.  The setting is a rocky beach on Crete, also based on images of an actual beach on Crete.

Here is a quick shot of the painting’s progress as of this afternoon:

The canvas is 18 X 36.