What’s in an angle?

6 x 8 ins: Oil on canvas board

I’ve been drawing but haven’t photographed the most recent ones yet, so here’s another wash-in of the previous pose seen from another angle. I prefer the other one. It’s more dramatic.

Seeing Red

Oil on canvas board: 8 x 6 ins

I love the challenge of a dramatic pose like this. The red lines were a way of redefining and checking my drawing. The use of a strong Cadmium red was an experiment, partly to make the marks stand out against the Umber so I could see the alterations clearly but also to increase the drama and energy of the image.

I made some other studies and colour notes of this pose so I may paint a larger, more finished painting from these at some point…

Loose limbed

6 x 8 ins: Oil on board

Another wash-in. The pose is quite similar to the previous one, and the thing I struggled with in both of them was the model’s left leg which looks in each case like it somehow doesn’t belong. No matter how much I measued and checked that leg persisted in looking disturbingly unattached. It’s something to do with the viewer’s angle in relation to the pose and the weight of the hip sinking into the mattress and I just couldn’t get either of them to look right. I honestly think a photograph would have looked just as odd. Otherwise I quite like this as a study.

Wash on Wash off

6×8 ins: Oil on canvas board

This was an experiment with an Umber wash-in, which is a traditional way to begin an oil painting, though I think how I’ve done it probably isn’t very traditional. But it is very washy.  And drippy. There’s a wonderful freedom working this way which is essentially drawing with a brush. The oil paint, thinned with genuine turps, can be pulled and pushed around for quite a long time before it dries. This would be the first layer of a painting, describing the general shapes and values.  The next stage would be to paint the scene again on top of this layer again using monochrome values, but with opaque paint. The third stage, when that second layer is dry, is to add colour, and finally the highlights. Oil paint can take days to dry so this is potentially quite a long process.