These are early February branch flowers. They are the first to bloom in Madrid after our cold winter. Shortly after painting this small painting, we were all confined to our homes during the entire spring.

Dante’s Inferno Canto IV in process – Mixed Technique: Tempera Underpainting and Resin-Oil Finish.
Canto IV Limbo Last Session
Canto IV Session 12
Canto IV Session 11
Canto IV Session 10
Canto IV Session 9
Canto IV Session 8
Canto IV Session 7
Canto IV Session 6
Canto IV Session 5
Canto IV Session 4
Canto IV Session 3
Canto IV Session 2
Canto IV Session 1
Dante’s Inferno Canto II (55) Beatriz Summons Virgil in Limbo 2012
Jim Belton’s modern language version of Canto II by Dante Alighieri. Click here to read Canto II.
73 cm x 100 cm or 28.74 in x 39.37 in
duck cloth
Primer
Primed Canvas
Mixing the Emulsion
Dry Pigment with Emulsion and Spatula for mixing
Pigment mixed with emulsion and water container
Session 1 egg tempera under painting in process
Session 2 egg tempera under painting
Session 3 egg tempera under painting
Session 4 egg tempera under painting
Gold leaf
Session 5 gold leaf
Session 6 oil painting
Session 7 resin oil
Canto IV, Limbo Session 8
Dante’s Inferno Canto 2 (55) Beatriz Summons Virgil in Limbo 2012
draft 1
I usually do some small rough drafts before starting a painting. These first five drafts are watercolors.
So anyway, this is just what I did. I started with five or six small rough drafts in watercolor. I picked one and started a 80 cm x 100 cm canvas painting of the watercolor in egg tempera technique. After copying the watercolor as best I could, I continued building up the idea and the paint. I finished with resin-oil which gives the finish a candied look.
I like big formats, so I try to have a clear idea. I like large but not too large sizes like 80 cm x 100 cm and 150 cm x 100 cm.
draft 3
Tempera is great for under-painting or you can leave it as is – unvarnished. It’s so quick and changeable and accepts oil over-painting perfectly well as a finished painting.
draft 4
The thought is that I’m interested in robotics in the sense of West World and Artificial Intelligence; two emotionally impacting movies I saw that surprised me.
draft 5
I’ve been looking at some of the latest robots in you tube as well as other things and fiction is becoming reality as usual.
Draft 1
My painting is about how fiction and reality are closely knit.
There is something about robots; I’m sure you’ve noticed too.
Resin Oil on Canvas – In Process
Most painters work in more than one medium because variety offers many possibilities of expression. I made a spin-off of the watercolor ‘Glass Bottles on top of Antique Closet’ in resin-oil. Resin-oil is a medium in which you mix oil with with thickened linseed oil and Venetian turpentine. This medium gives a candied effect with vivid colors. I use resin-oil in a more expressionistic manner than my watercolor and tempera paintings. I like the happy accidents and drips that show up on the canvas. There is one drawback regarding resin-oil; the room where you paint needs to have plenty of ventilation because the vapors are very strong.
This is the watercolor ‘Glass Bottles on top of Antique Closet’. I chose this to make the resin-oil.
I use linseed oil, thickened linseed oil, Venetian turpentine, dry pigments and odorless petroleum spirits as part of my equipment.
When you mix the dry pigment with linseed oil with a spatula, the paint has to stand up like butter, not run down to meet the surface.
When you finish your painting session, clean your brushes with petroleum spirit, wash them carefully with warm water and soap and hang them upside down to dry.
I don’t always begin with a drawing, but since I’m making a copy of my watercolor in a different meduim, I want to control the out come.
I always try to work all around the picture plane, developing everything at the same time in order to find harmony.