New Diptych Paintings

I purchased these amazing metal dice from SummitDice – they were super friendly and accommodating. I like painting these intricate metal dice, but the one they sent me had a really aggressive patina on it. I took a few pictures and felt it wasn’t really what I was after. While it added a lot of visual interest in the hand, I worried that the patina might detract from the painted image.

They kindly sent me another copy without the patina and I sent the original back. Happy with the new die, I took a new set of reference photos to work from and realized perhaps I was being a bit to judgemental of the patina. Julie actually suggested that she preferred the version with the patina to the one without.

I (now) think they both look great. And both could make for interesting paintings. So I decided – why not paint both? If I could find a color for the background that would harmonize with both it could make a really interesting diptych.

Here’s the shiny version of the die above.

And below is the version with the patina.

I know it’s difficult to see the difference here as they look quite similar at this initial progress point. This is just a transfer and wipeout to start to block in the light and dark masses.

Here’s the first pass at trying to block in the local color a bit and start to lock in some of the drawing.

Shiny:

Patina:

Lots of drawing and color issues still be resolved at this point but I think you can see the potential. I expect that it will take two or maybe three more full passes to fully resolve and push these as far as I can.

I’ve since spent a full day working on the shiny version and got about half way through the next pass on that one. A lot of work ahead and I think I’ve hit up on a nice blue hue that will work in the background. More to come soon.