Sunday, October 09, 2011

Life paintings

Wow September came and went so fast- I never posted anything. That doesn't mean I wasn't busy painting and drawing! I'm still going to my weekly life painting/drawing group at Whitespace. I'm now using acrylics to paint the long pose (about 1 hour 45mins). I'm painting on little boards only 9x12inches, to allow me get a degree of finish within the time frame. These boards (MDF from DIY store) provide a good painting surface, they need to be gessoed (3 coats) before use and I then paint neutral gray mixed with acrylic texture paste medium to provide a more interesting paint surface and to get rid of the white gesso- replaced with a midtone. Here's the one I did last week
Rebecca 9x12 inches Acrlyic on board And here is tonight's effort
Justin 9x12inches Acrlyic on board I'm using a new viewfinder that I got, It's really helping me think about the composition before I start and keeps me focussed on scale too. With many of my tutored life classes I'd done previously, there was always pressure to make sure you got the WHOLE figure in to the picture- which really hampers creative composition I feel. The viewfinder let me try out different cropped compositions to pick one that is interesting before I start. Also I'm working with a limited pallette (yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, Burnt umber and black and white) I'm finding this works great for me creating believable skin tones and creating a moore harmonious painting. Ryan

1 comment:

Ron Guthrie said...

Hi Ryan,
These are both good looking work. Your skin colors, especially on the man, are very well done. I've got to brush up on that for some upcoming work later this month and January for a project. Thought I'd check your blog since I know you were doing figure work.

I dig the texture on the panels too. That always adds a nice "arty" touch to finished work. I used Liquitex Acrylic Gel Medium when I experimented with it a few years ago...works great. Keep up the nice work Ryan!