After struggling so hard with my last painting (‘Envy’ see previous Blog) because of no defined light source, I am really enjoying this new work. Very early days yet, but I have a good feeling about it. I was really pleased with the composition of ‘Envy’ and the end result worked, but this painting feels so easy in comparison. So….my studio is relatively small, and is also where I live, so am mostly confined to photographs to work from. In an ideal world, I would always work from life, but this is just not possible at the moment (I need a gallery to take me on lol) so photos rule for now. I teach life drawing locally, and asked one of my models to come and pose for me in a series of poses that I set up and this is the result of one of them. I shall emphasise the lights and darks more as I go on – again Caravaggio comes to mind here – and I have put more red into the model’s top to bring in an element of colour interest. As yet this work is untitled, and I would welcome help here if anyone has…
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This has taken me longer than I anticipated for two reasons. The first is that I used a snapshot to work from and it is always difficult to find the detail in a quick photograph like this. When I used to paint portrait commissions I would always ask if I could be given a good, clear head and shoulder shot of the sitter so that I could really get down to the details etc. The second, and possibly more important reason for me, is that there is no direct light source, ie. definite lights and shades, so the overall effect is for me a bit bland. Not the sitters, I hasten to say, nor the composition, which I love, just the lighting. When I set up a composition using a model, I will always try to have a defined light source coming from one side, wherever possible. This then produces wonderful lights, tones, shades etc. Have a look at Caravaggio’s work on Google to see what I mean. Having said all this, I am happy with the final result, although I feel I may have overworked the details as a result. Looser brush next time…. The painting is available…
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