A new painting, which always excites me.
The model for this work is one of my life models who has such wonderful skin to paint and a natural grace when she poses for the life drawing class that I run. I asked if she would come to the studio and model for me in various settings that I had in mind. In the end she had her own ideas as well, and we came up with some brilliant poses which will feature in future paintings – and in fact already have.
With this work I wanted to convey the woman of today, confident, happy in her own skin, hard working etc. She has had a good day at work and is relaxing with a glass of wine before she goes out possibly. Or this could be her workwear and she is knackered and just wants her downtime. The hands behind the head are so that she can be just thinking her own thoughts, reflecting on her day, or wondering on the evening ahead. Or just listening to some cool music.
Sometimes, as I have said before in one of my blogs, cropping a painting works well. The viewer does not always need to see a complete face, he/she will make up his/her own mind what the person looks like.
I am delighted with the red sofa in the composition. Red always lifts a painting, as I have discovered with the red shoes in previous works. Initially, I thought the red might be too strident in the picture as a whole, but having put in the black and grey cushions, the red is slightly more muted.
Not sure yet what colour the dress will end up being. The model was wearing a grey dress, but this is too similar to the cushions, so need to have a think about that.
I think the composition works very well portrait size and cropped and have yet to decide what else to put on the table next to the glass of wine. Something to make the viewer think I hope…
I am in the process, finally, of having my website updated. Thank you to everyone who has kindly agreed to have their comments uploaded onto a separate page on the new website. It should be up and running in a few weeks, so bear with me please!
www.michewatkins.com
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Outstanding…
Thank you Leslie, it will be up on Twitter tomorrow when I do my Twitter stuff! I am really pleased with the composition and the colour in this one, so hopefully it will turn out ok. I am also starting a smaller work just of a pair of legs in sassy leopard print shoes with red soles!