Website www.michewatkins.com I think this will be finished next week and I am going to rename it ‘Elation’ – thank you for that title from a friend on Twitter. Thank you to those of you who thought up good titles, but this one word just sounded right to me. The woman is so elated with her new red shiny shoes…..a feeling I think many women will identify with. Every time I start a painting, I forget how difficult it is to get skin tones right and the more so as I dislike using any browns on my palette (and never use black). I far prefer blues, mauves, pinks and purples for tones as I think this makes for a more interesting skin tone, but infinitely more difficult in the long run. I never make my life easy. I have had to use brown in the floor obviously, but where possible have used yellow ochre and a touch of cadmium orange and red rather than straight brown. I have also added touches of the blues and lilacs which I used on the wall to pull the painting together. Regarding the wall, I tried endless possibilities here, but in the end have come…
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The Three Graces in New Red Shoes – Week 1 – 26 March 2015
www.michewatkins.com This is just a working title, as usual I will need help from a certain Twitter follower as words are not my forte…. For this painting, I got inspiration from another artist who had used the same model in one painting. I had the benefit of a great model who came over to my studio with a range of different outfits and I was able to take a lot of photos for future reference and paintings. I would love to be able to always paint from life, but time and space do not allow this for me at the moment, so I have to rely on the photographs where possible. I wanted to explore the idea of women and their love affair with shoes, so I have positioned the model in different poses admiring her new shiny red shoes. I think I want to keep the background fairly plain, but aim to layer on paint with a palette knife as time goes on, not on the female figure though. I also aim to make more of the shadows – I like the shadows around the legs and against the wall and will give this more definition as the painting…
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New title for ‘Intimacy’ and start of new painting. March 18 2015
www.michewatkins.com ‘Intimacy’ is finished and I decided after all to change the name, thanks to an idea from a Twitter follower of mine. So now it is ‘Stay a Bit Longer’ which I think does work with this painting. I look at it and see the woman trying to persuade her lover to stay a while, whereas he is beginning to get itchy feet.. maybe he is married to someone else. Only my interpretation of course; that is why I paint narrative figurative paintings, so that the viewer can form their own opinion of what is going on. I have struggled with the light in this painting, another lesson learned as I went along. I took the photo into the light from the window, so had to imagine for the most part the shading on the flesh for both figures. In a way this was a good exercise for me and it meant I could be a bit more experimental with my colour palette. I dislike using brown and wherever possible will use blues and purples instead – makes for a more interesting painting I think. it will be available via my website www.michewatkins.com for £350. My next painting is…
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