Thread: Guitar strings
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Old 11-20-2009, 03:01 PM   #4
Richard Bingham Richard Bingham is offline
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Joined: Jan 2006
Location: Blackfoot Id
Posts: 431
Without seeing your overall handling of the piece, it could be "bad advice" to advocate any particular method of dealing with such fine details as guitar strings (or frets).

Generally, it's usually not the best thing to stress over any detail. Lost and found edges, "impressions" and visual shorthand are usually best, letting the viewer "fill in" what's missing. After all, the most important thing in the painting is not the guitar, or its strings and frets, but the head of the guitarist (right?)

That said, the confidence to render fine detail depends on 1.your hand/eye coordination 2. your brush handling skill 3. your knowledge of your materials.

Possible "ploys" - if you have the "chops", paint the detail into a "couch" with loose paint using a rigger and a mahl-stick, (anyone doing portraits should own this particular skill set) OR use the edge of a palette knife to paint the strings, rather than a brush, OR use "sgraffito" to render the strings (scrape off darker overpaint to reveal a lighter underpainting using a needle or a knife, OR you can "model" 3-D "strings" in an impasto technique (white lead and copal concentrate makes paint stiff enough to "stand and salute").

And, indeed, you could paint actual strings into your picture (as you suggest) : Antonio Mancini (19th C. Italian artist) used strange grids of strings to make some of his later pictures, one which he looked through, the other was a network superimposed on the painting, which sometimes became incorporated into the paint layers. It would not be the best technique from an archival standpoint, however.

Good luck, and please show us how you're "doing". By posting the work in progress, perhaps other more helpful suggestions will be offered.
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