Matt Atkinson Art
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"Messengers at Running Eagle Falls" Before and After

8/18/2015

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Preliminary drawing for "Messengers..." on the linen
    Running Eagle Falls in Glacier National Park is named for Pitamaka, "Running Eagle," a Blackfeet woman who performed her vision ceremony at the site in the early 1800s. Pitamaka became a warrior of great renown, even keeping a place in her father's warriors' council lodge. Running Eagle Falls remains a site of significance to the Blackfeet people to this day.
    This painting shows a group of young Blackfeet men passing in front of the falls, and spotting a red tailed hawk--a holy omen. I love this site in Glacier--the loud rush of the cold water and the rising mist are just amazing. It is almost magical how the slanted stones of the falls turn from flinty grey in direct sunlight to a warm, luminescent blue-orange at dawn or sunset. I often use golden sunlight in my work, and on the sloping shelves of stone it just seemed perfect.
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Finished painting, 24x32"
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"The Violin Maker" progress pictorial 

5/29/2015

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This painting began with a rough pencil sketch on linen mounted to a birch board. I used a projector to help place guide lines (well, scribbles, really) to map out my basic forms.
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Once I had my basic forms in place, I did a quick sketch in charcoal pencil to help plot my dark and light areas. To be successful, this painting would need to have strong contrasts between light and dark values, so that good edges would give form to the major components. With the busy work bench, I didn't want the man and his violin to be lost.
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Then I do a light wash of acrylic to help settle the shapes and placements of major forms:

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Then comes the underpainting. These are quick, broad strokes of oil paint, simply to help establish the colors of the painting. My goal here is to get the main blocks of color and form down so I can verify that the palette is working well. There's no detail, just brushstrokes.
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I start to add detailed brushwork here, and borrow a friend's violin for reference
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And now a little more (I lightened the man's shirt, because the warm tones in the picture above were too similar to his face tones, and he was getting lost against the dark wall):
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The finished piece:
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"A Tradition of Precision" - the process

8/9/2014

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I start by cutting linen to size, and adhering it to a birch panel. I use an acid-free conservationist's adhesive made of liquefied plant starch, which will preserve the canvas.

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Mounting linen to panel creates a more durable ground for the painting. It resists warping, will not have to be re-stretched every few years, and won't tear or puncture.

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A rough pencil sketch helps establish the composition.


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A thin wash of acrylic paint over the gesso helps block out the image.

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Almost done--now it's time to paint in the details, especially in the areas where I want the viewer's eye to focus.
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The finished painting
I block in the color with a large brush. No attention to detail here; this stage is all about establishing the values of the painting.
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"In Beauty It Is Finished" - Painting Process

8/10/2013

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To create a painting, I usually begin with linen or canvas mounted to board (birch or Ampersand artist's board), using archival liquefied plant starch as an adhesive. This prevents the canvas from ever being harmed by punctures, cuts, or loosening of stretcher bars. I begin with a rough sketch using watercolor pencil (because regular pencil graphite smudges when painted). This is where the basic composition is established.

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I paint from background to foreground, usually. At first, I use a large brush just to block out colors. There is no detail yet, just shapes, in order to play with the painting's values and color palette. For the painting "In Beauty It Is Finished," I experimented with crimsons and reds, but wanted the blue sash behind Suzie (the portrait subject) to help create contrast between her and the warm background.

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As more background details become satisfactory, I finally begin work on the main foreground subject. I knew the left edge of her face would be a particularly critical part of the painting, so I underpainted in Payne's Grey acrylic (the dark smudge on the face area) so that I would have a neutral ground to work on, for color accuracy. Notice that the foreground is still just rough, large brush strokes.

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I am not yet working on fine details. I've brushed in simple color guides for the turquoise necklace, and begun to lay down the different colors of her skin tone. There is even still some unpainted canvas showing through at this stage! Before going into "full detail mode," I need to be sure that the main subject has enough value contrast with the background to give her "strength" in the painting. Too much "red on red," and she'd be lost.

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Now I've started adding in the more precise details, like the turquoise and silver necklace , and her glasses, and the bundle of yarn behind her. Notice that her face, hair, and hands are still painted very coarsely, and that I've gone back and added additional details to the background. Throughout the process, I am also creating new paints out of hand-milled earth pigments and oils.

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Now it's all detail work. The last touches to her skin make her face seem luminescent, and her hands are carefully given their wrinkles and edges. The apples are done. The glasses are given careful attention. The necklace and bracelet are completed with a hog hair round brush, and the vertical parallel warp threads of the loom are filled in using a natural rigging brush. This has become one of the paintings of which I am most proud.


Addendum, February 2014: Susie Yazzie passed away on February 13, 2013. This painting, which has always had a very special place in my heart, found its way to a new home one year later on February 14, 2014. The couple who chose it fell in love with it, and told me that they wanted her to be in a home where she would be treated with reverence, and that she represents strength and wisdom to them. I told them I was thrilled that Susie had found her way into just the right home, and that her new caretakers would see this painting not as a commodity but as something very personal.

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Pipe-Making, Conclusion

8/29/2011

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River presented Argus with a pouch of tobacco and asked for help with his pipe. River was given a piece of pipestone by Dakota elder Chuck Derby, just before Chuck's death a couple of years ago. Chuck had asked River to hang onto it until he was ready to "make something good out of it."

Of course, Argus has said that he wants to be finished making pipes after mine, but he was very happy to help River get started. So Argus took river into his workshop and showed him how to file the pipestone, and then helped River with the hardest part: drilling the holes. River's stone is very small so Argus can't hand-drill the way he does with a very traditional pipe, so he used his drill press to create the holes and returned the stone to River. He also gave River an ash-wood blank stem to carve, and said that when River is ready to carve the "tang" (the part of the stem that enters the stone bowl) he'll help. So yeah, River is trying to start carving a small pipe of his own.

I have no idea how that'll turn out...pipe-carving is painstaking, and hard enough for an adult, let alone an 11-year-old with "ADHOoh, something shiny over there!" But I was really happy that River came up with this on his own.
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