Admiral Jewgenij Aleksejew

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30. Day, July 26, 2017

Sorry - today something later than usual, but there were a few other things.

Look at the last picture of yesterday! The "plates" of the epaulettes do not like me so much!

The painting looks rough, which is due to the many tiny corrections that I had to make until the "crows" looked so plausible ...:



These two spots disturbed me enormously, may be, I exaggerate, but I found they pulled down the whole figure!

So away with them and do it again!

What are the possibilities now?





First, paint. This will not work, because if the subsoil is already crap, every overpainting will obviously look even more dull - and acrylic paint looks the more miserable, the thicker it becomes.

Second, color downcrash. With knives or toothpicks or dentist tools. Problem: Great danger of damage!

Third, the brachial method. Figure wash off and indeed tutto completto! Of course nonsense, because of two not so successful places to destroy a complete painting again, which is actually quite well, does not seem the true Jacob.

Alcohol is the solution! (No, of course, alcohol is a distillate and not a solution - but it does solve the problem!)

So fourthly: My self-invented "Targeted partial decoloration method"!

Man needs four things:

- an old brush, which should still be soft and have a tip,
- 70% isopropanol alcohol (100 ml approx. 3,50 € in the pharmacy) ...



- a kitchen towel,
- much time or patience.

With the alcohol-impregnated brush wet carefully the spot, what is to be decolorized. Then I start to paint, just with alcohol and not with color.

During the first two or three brush strokes, nothing happens, but then you see: Suddenly there is some color on the brush tip!

The isopropanol product dissolves the acrylic paints (even metal colors such as gold and silver) but leaves the underlying primer intact.

I continue to work gently, and "paint" so brushstroke for brushstroke the color again from the figure.

And after about 40 minutes, the primer can be seen again ...:





Absolutely "bloodless" the whole, the surrounding places remain intact and undamaged!

**Hurraaah!**

Last step for today:

As I want to use a different technique in the representation of the golden color of the "plate" on the epauletes, so I underpainted the two places with a mix of these colors ...:



So much for today.
 
32. Day, July 27, 2017

So - today is correction day!

And the first was a correction a friend had recommended to me some time ago:

I have applied much more light to the upper chest area - where there are no decorations. "Much more" also means "much more" - at any rate more than can be seen in the pictures ...








Ant then: The epaulettes!

Let's look at an original again:

The "plates" of those things are made of much different material than the fringes - and they do not shine, they only shimmer!



So I added my ocher-brown background to a few shadows on the outside and then the two "plates" carefully brushed with "Brass".

They shimmer now, but they shine no more!

Then they painted the eagles, they still look (even like the originals!) like uprunned crows, but they are now more like the template and you can recognize three distinct symbols ...:







I have taken very dilute black for it, so everything remains beautifully matte and it does not work - as before - so rough.

At the two tsar monograms, I took away the silver luster with two or three wash's of a mixture of "Oily Steel" and black, so they look more like aluminum and not silver ...:



I think the corrections have paid off!
 
34. Day, July 29, 2017

In my German home forum came from a colleague a critique : The front seams of sleeves at the bust are missing ...!

First look carefully ...:

With the long naval uniform skirt worn until 1899, no problem! There were the seams of the sleeves in unusual places and are easy to recognize ...:



But we do not write 1899 but 1904!

The painting of Admiral Alekseev, which is my original, unfortunately does not make a point of clarifying this question ...:



Now, let's have a look at an original naval uniform of a Captain First Rank (equivalent to a colonel of the army) that hangs in the museum today ...:



It is at least to see that the seam of the right sleeve (in the picture on the left!) is completely hidden by the "monkey swing"!
About the other side, the picture does not say anything!

Here we have the absolutely same uniform skirt, only this time worn by the owner, Tsar Nikolai II.

He never wore other rank-badges than those of a Colonel - his father, Czar Aleksandr III, had given him this rank, whose monogram we can also see on the epaulettes ...:



The epaulettes of an admiral were considerably larger (and the fringes longer) than those of a captain!

The concealed seam on the one hand is confirmed by this photo - on the other side, with an extreme enlargement and good will, a sleeve seam is at least to be guessed ...:




To see more clearly, we need another original photo - the best is overexposed, so that we can see on the black fabric at all.

This is the case with this lieutenant at sea. We recognize the seams well ...:

With our friend Alekseev, however, it is almost completely covered by the thick golden fringes of the epaulet, but underneath is a bit of it is to recognize!

And like this I have the seam just painted ...:
 
35. Day, July 30, 2017

With the painting of the "invisible side" and the pin with pure black ends the work on the corpus today!

Down there, Heinz left his monogram, so hidden that I hardly noticed before.

I think the beautiful sculpt has deserved that the monogram of the sculptor has to be a bit more prominent and was so free to gild it ...:








Tomorrow it goes on with the badge for the base.

The base is also black and is already waiting at the post office for me, as a note from "DHL" in the mailbox told me.

Why do they actually ALWAYS come when you are not at home ...?
 
Hi Martin

A excellent result in every respect and a very nice touch paying tribute to the sculptor , you have done his sculpt credit .

Must say the medals etc are great and the additional highlighting work well


As for DHL ..calling when the customer isn't in seems to be a requirement to get the job !!!!!...... for me it's making sure I get to the postman before my wife does ...LOL

Thanks got sharing

Nap
 
Hi Martin

The badge is the icing on the top and is a fine resin copy and nice,y painted in details ...will you be lightning the blue cross further ?

Can't wait to see the final result , this has been a wonderful and detaiked journey and I have learnt so much from tge painting and your references

Thanks for sharing and look forward to your next bemedalled subject ( how is the mounted Cossack getting on ? )

Nap
 
Martin Rohmann said:
The Cossack will be an "gift" from myself to me for my birthday and it is in October.

I do not start with it before - but look forward to it!

(Maybe I get the bust of Wladimir Vyssotski before from Russia ...)

Wait and see...

I will write an sbs here for sure.
Click to expand...


Martin

What a great gift to yourself my friend ...look forward to seeing the SBS

Happy painting

Nap
 
39. Day, August 2, 2017

Today is the first "wedding day":

First I used my favorite two-component glue ...



...to fix the badge to the socle...:







The "lion portion" holds a small wedge, which I have carved on cork rests ...:



When the glue was hardened and there was no longer the risk of slipping, I gave the badge a cover of high-gloss clear lacquer ...:

Makes itself very well!

The lacquer can is, by the way, ancient - and I keep it as my eyeball! Such beautiful high-gloss lacquers today are no longer, everything is dominated only by water and "silk mats".

I bought the varnish at the time when I had killed a three-week painting work on a newly finished Roman floor mosaic, using a lacquer containing acetone...:


That was 2009 - and I still can not view the pictures, without the adrenaline level rising jerkily ...

Next step: The still headless bust comes also on the socle - the appropriate hole I had already drilled before.

I had to paint the pin in two places - but after the drying of the paint no longer noticeable at all.

Bust, socle and badge together make a pretty picture I think ...:



So - the anticipation rises, because tomorrow will be the second "wedding day", then the head comes to its place ...
 

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