Before I start talking art, a bit of news. I retired on Tuesday. Eighteen months…
Bailey
After a few days off dealing with all sorts of other stuff in my life, I’m back to work again. Today it’s some figure drawing in coloured pencils and it’s a debut for Bailey as model.
There’s nothing new to say about my methodology. I put down the starting drawing using a 5×7 grid of squares. Then I put on the colour. Throughout the process I would stare at the painting and try to identify which colour was missing. Then I’d add the colour where could see it in the source photo and then in some places where I just fancied putting it down. Some of those places were influenced by how I was drifting into putting warmer colours on rightward and downward facing edges and cooler onto leftward and upward.
After I thought enough colour was on. I burnished the painting all over. I used a light grey on the tablecloth, raw sienna on the hair and a combination of white and beige red on the flesh. Afterwards I tinkered by adding more colour on top: some sepia in the shadows on the cloth (where I tried to get soft edges), indigo on all the shadiest bits on the body and a few different colours in the hair. I also outlined all the body and hair in indigo. Finally I put in a greeny blue background.
While this one’s not terrible, there are a few things about it that bug me:
– the sticky out bit at the top of the left thigh sticks out too much
– the right arm out in the left doesn”t harmonise with the rest of the body, so doesn’t look like part of it
– the hair feels a bit too intensely coloured compared to the rest of the body
– worst of all, the right shoulder looks instead like part of a very wide neck
On the other hand, the tablecloth looks ok this time, with no signs of laziness, and the colours on the body (the indigo in particular) look good.
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