Aaron Nagel RUNs Us Thru Signals

The idea of documenting the process and my thoughts on a painting from start to finish initially sounds exhausting, and as usual, I’m always wary of providing too much information. Not that I have some top secret painting techniques or anything, but more that it generally feels a little more personal than just posting a finished piece and allowing people to process it their own way. (there’s a fine line between being a private guy and keeping a blog on the internet for the world to read…and that fine line was likely crossed years ago so I should probably stop worrying about it). And of course I’m constantly asking myself if people really want all this information? which is another moot point — it’s my own blog, and if people weren’t interested,  they wouldn’t read it right? why worry? Besides, I’ve done ‘step by steps’ three times before, [here] & [here] & [here], and people seemed to enjoy them. I also read other artists blogs constantly, and find them entertaining and very educational — if anybody gets a little of that from anything I post here, i’m happy.So there you have a very abbreviated version of my thought process on these entries, and a preview of the meanderings to come. Am I aware that I felt the need to justify posting on my ownblog? yes I am. You’d think with a couple websites, a facebook page, a decrepit myspace profile, a half-ass Twitter account, and who knows what else, I’d be comfortable with the presumed ego one needs to self-promote. Which is not to say I don’t have an ego, because I do, and it’s awesome. But I digress…I’m ready to get serious now.

there is some progression of glazes [above] I promise, a couple of days worth. I make sure never to glaze lights with too much white, even in the harshest highlighted areas,  as I find it kind of screws up the temperature and can make things unintentionally cool (with the exception of the black painted areas which reflect a much cooler light).

i’m almost finished with the glazing [above], and while the figure looks close to where I want it, the background is looking a little too flat — so I re-painted it. I was looking for a more uniform look at the top of the piece, and a more layered look for the bottom where the figure degrades into the background to give the whole thing a little more depth.  It’s lost a bit in these pictures (as usual), but I think the change, though subtle, makes a big difference.

almost done, final pictures in the next post!

And it’s done! This was a fun piece, and I’m very happy that I didn’t ruin it with all the experimenting (there’s been a bit of that recently). Unless anything changes, this piece will be part of the Arts Fund Expo at the W Hotel, for this year’s Art Basel in Miami.