Started my painting off with a base of browns. I lightly covered the entire canvas with a middle tone and then began to add in value within shapes. I followed the movement of the body by blocking in the dark shadows and bright highlights. This beginning stage was very quick and messy but it was just to get some paint on the canvas and getting proportions of the body right. I find the beginning of all paintings extremely important, not that it decides the future of the painting but gets me in a mindset that connects me, the paint and the subject matter, Katherine our nude model.
Continued just layering on building up the shapes and form.
As more visual change occurred I hit a block. I went into the painting believing I wanted to do Photo realism and stick to the techniques I’ve always known but wasn’t feeling it while painting. This thursday I was going through some personal issues, which was being shown through my art. I was feeling trapped in this room, for six hours, and decided to go crazy on it. I just stared adding in some color blocking with bright colors, throwing on magenta, green, yellow, and blue. After this chaotic and drastic change of heart I went in and started to blend in the colors. I loved it. It was what I was feeling inside that wanted to get out. The colors I was layering onto were starting to glow because of the extreme layering I was doing.
To clean up the colorful mess I went in with black cleaning up the background by completely covering it all up and then adding in highlights and black lines. This gave the piece a funky and fun look. In class I was listening to Amy Winehouse and Jazz and the music comes through in my piece.
Almost finished and this was the outcome I then went in and added more whites giving the piece a frosty glow. As I felt more connected to the piece I started to see my personality and style come through. The piece is gestural, bright, blended, smooth and just fun. Very happy with the outcome even though the piece took a while to decide where it wanted to go. It now proudly sits on my desk in the dorm.
