Camel wip by Mario Donk

This is a humorous interpretation of the thoughts of a camel as it see’s an approaching sand storm.
What else can one say, the image says it all, drawing is in charcoal and I went straight into laying color areas, normally I would under paint but this is fairly basic so should develop fine by going straight into it.
Come back and see how its progressing.

Part 2
Now on hind sight it would have been better to do an under painting first, but no harm done as there is hardly any paint down so I do an underpainting in brown , Iron oxide, egg, sun-thickened linseed oil, damar and lots of water, a right sticky mess that is great to work with and once set will never come off, believe me I tried on a failed painting, it is there to stay, as long as the pyramids.

So for now ignore that the nice color is not so nice, we will put it back later, for now ruthless modeling and getting the 3D look right.

It now needs to set some and then I can do more with white which is some oil white plus egg tempera and zinc oxide all mixed, the result is a lean mix as is all tempera painting, over this comes the oil a day or so later as it needs to be set enough not to move as I paint over it with oil paint.

I have to be a little careful with the shadows as its going to be a high key painting as its in the desert in the full sun, shadows will get washed out with glare and reflection but thats fixed in the over painting, well thats the plan.

Part 3
More tonal work largely with tempera and a little oil paint to add more shape and substance to the work, more dense dust storm, too dense but thats intentional as the oil paint will lighten it considerably and push it back where it belongs, if I do it now it will be very wimpy once oil paint goes on.

So basically now its got to dry, then a separation layer, possibly very dilute damar with a tad oil so as not to be too brittle but so little oil as not to actually put oil there as it will go brown so only the smallest part oil to keep it flexible, the idea being to seal the ground as its too absorbent for oil paint right now for what I have in mind.

Part 4.
I worked on the sand and a little in the sky and some to the dust storm which in wip 5 is totally transformed , see wip 5 when I can photograph it as its moved on a lot more then here but it needs to dry horizontal or it will all run, so a lot more paint, damar and oil, Am going to make a UV cupboard so I can speed the setting as this takes a while and putting it outside in the sun is not an option.

Part 5
Now where cooking with gas, its starting to get some where, note the storm is very different now exploding like some crazy thing across the sky. It will likely change again. Now to work some on the camel. When the storm is dry it may get a glaze of dark blue in parts but will see perhaps a scumble is better, however if it did brown in that area in time it would not be a color problem.
Then the shade of the dune in the foreground also needs more complexity and perhaps the illusion of being able to focus on something there. So far so good.

See Camel close up in my art section for a part detail of this stage

Part 6
I added some paint to the camel and to the shadow bottom left of painting. It now all needs to set enough so that I don’t lift it when I scumble over parts or actually dissolve under-layers as the damar is a combination of damar and turps, you can easily scrub the under color away if you do it too soon.

Same as the sand storm, one could continue painting on it if body color was the intent but as its a voluminous mass of dirt solid color is not the total way to go, it needs some layering and there is entirely no point what so ever in layering if the layers are solid color. so its all got to hurry up and dry, as it is most of the stages have each been about an hour of work and then put aside to set, one spends a great deal of time looking at it and thinking but actual paint time is short. However, short will not reflect in the price as the older I get the quicker I get but thats a life of practice and I am not giving that up for free.