New Paintings page

I’ve added a Figure Paintings tab on the menu bar..and a new post…

Back lit

Acrylic on Paper  14 x 10 ins

Another exploration with interactive acrylic and ‘drawing with a brush’.  Here there was time, about 50 minutes in all, to introduce white with the umber and go beyond a basic wash-in to add a little loose modelling on the back and a touch of detail in the profile.

Moodlight

Acrylic on paper  6 x 8 ins approx

A fairly quick wash-in experimenting with interactive acrylic paint, I found it very freeing to splash around with water, rather than turps or mineral spirits which are both costly and toxic, and to be able to reactivate the paint when touch dry, more like oils. I’ll continue to play around with this medium to find out how it performs in other ways.

Between the lines

A3: Charcoal and wash

I was more deliberate about the design of this than I usually am when drawing one pose on top of another.  I included straight lines suggested by the interior of the studio as a deliberate contrast with the organic flowing contours of the model. By extending washes into some of these more abstract grid lines I was aiming to break up the composition further and increase the general ambiguity and transparency and the blurring of apparent boundaries between body and space, self and other…

Broad daylight

10 x 14 ins: Acrylic on paper

This is a very quick value study going straight for the light, middle and dark tones and their relationship to each other across the figure and through the space. Very immediate using a big brush with just white and umber acrylic paint…strong daylight falling onto the model from the studio window…and little time to think!  Is it a painting…or a drawing in paint?

Stillness moving

A3: Charcoal on paper

Here’s a very recent ‘composite’ drawing, a series of short poses drawn on top of each other, which has unwittingly become a bit of a trademark. I do them to save time and paper but that’s clearly not all. I really enjoy the inability to control the end result and the illusion of various figures appearing to relate with each other in fleeting moments…self seeming to dance with self.

I’m exploring this effect of ‘stillness moving’ in painting as well as drawing. It’s the closest I’ve come to expressing, through art, something of the nondual nature of experience…this oneness appearing to be many.

Very Laid Back

A3: Charcoal & wash on paper

Here’s a bit of full-on foreshortening to kick off the New Year!

After a long break of no life drawing since summer I treated myself to four full days of  intensive untutored practice last week, so I feel like I’m just about back in gear.  And what an excellent way to spend that time between Boxing Day and New Year’s eve!

Stretching curling turning

A3: Charcoal and wash on paper

I enjoy the challenge of foreshortened poses and with this one it just seemed right to emphasise the length and movement through the body by framing the head fairly tightly into the top corner so the model’s torso and legs seem to unravel and extend down the page…or is she maybe curling up…or turning over?

Leaning back

A3: Charcoal and wash on paper

I’ve taken a break from life drawing for a while and have been painting, mainly figure paintings but also landscapes, and now I’m almost ready to come back to this. I never intend to stop but my pattern seems to be to draw regularly for a few months and then have a few weeks off. So far I’ve always come back to it with renewed enthusiasm…

Meanwhile this drawing is one I did earlier. The diagonal pose goes off the page anchoring it to the edges of the paper and I like sense of the light coming in from the right and the dark shadow on the left emphasising the weight leaning on her right arm.

Got a minute…

A3: Ink wash on paper

These three one-minute sketches are each about 10.5 ins/27cm high and it’s all about capturing the gesture of a pose with a brush and ink…and fast!  The model moves into a new pose every minute and there’s no time to think so they’re a lot of fun to do.

I seem to have hurried the photography too. Must set up some kind of reflector system…or an A3 scanner would be cool!