Week 3 ‘Hanging A Painting’. 24 Sept 2015

So I sat down this week with my my Ipod Shuffle plugged in (yes it does still exist) and turned up the volume on the Rolling Stones and off I went..

I never seem to learn that is better to approach the painting of the flesh ONCE I have been experimenting and gaining confidence with other parts of a painting. Painting flesh tones is notoriously difficult, at least for me and needs to be approached with caution! A skirt is blue, shoes are red etc., but flesh is pink, blue, purple, yellow ochre etc etc etc and I always, always get it wrong first time around. As I did this time – again. Anyway, with Mick and Keith in the background I calmed down and got the flesh tones going again AFTER painting the picture frames etc. I do like adding in my touches of blue and pink to the skin as it adds interest.

Talking of which, I have set myself a really hard task putting my paintings into the picture. For a start they are unframed, so have had to imagine the frames (with a little help from Google) and then how much detail do I put into the actual paintings? Too detailed and they will look overworked, but not enough will not fit in with the detail on the blonde. I had hoped to finish this today, but decided the paintings needed more detail, but by this time I had lost the will to live and needed coffee.

So next week the final details on the paintings, a touch more highlights on the hair and possibly a bit more paint splashed/dripped onto the back wall. The rest of the figure I think I am happy with now. I like seeing her hanging a painting of herself on the wall!

I am going to go with a cropped figure for my next painting and I think she will be lying on my red couch with a mysterious man in the background….