Sunday, April 22, 2012

gestures

worked out why I'm enjoying these 'more than a face' portraits:  how shoulders, hands, stance etc create a gesture or mannerism that offers other ways into the character of the person painted.




 And yes, the hands and feet are meant to be bigger.  Something I've been messing around with at life drawing and seemed to be the right way to go with Lesley (tho still changing my mind about the clothing)

Monday, April 16, 2012

elastic time




painted two things today.  Each took a similar amount of time:  beginning the second of my 'mask' series, and working on tones and chroma in the Jim portrait. Fast, slow? Or just the nature of different stages of a piece.  Mmmm.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Lesley from Life and Pix

Wednesdays at 4ish I head to Gap Rd where the lovely Lesley has agreed to sit for me: I'm relishing the opportunity of painting mainly from life (with some prep work and other bits and pieces between sessions).
I played with a small head on board last week, then messed around at home with chino graph pencils, then turps, then oil pastels, then more turps, to, as it were, find my way around her head.  I want to have a full length sitting pose, so took a couple of shots before I left and worked out a sketch idea that I'll take with me this Wednesday and see where we go from there.  The equally lovely Stella Spaniel+ will, I think, become an integral part of the piece (she can't quite believe her luck of having her head scratched for a whole hour at a time . . .)








Tuesday, April 10, 2012