Evaluation
My initial ideas for this painting were to work in a much more gestural and abstract way than with my previous work. I started this by using a completely different technique; after marking out the basic figures, I used a pallet knife to get big sweeping movements and apply paint thickly in quite rapid movements. I have only really tried using a pallet knife once before, however that was on wooden board. I found that the canvas started to warp and I was concerned about tearing it when I applied the amount of pressure required to get the movements I wanted, therefore in future I will definitely work onto board (or something more solid/sturdy) when trying similar techniques!
After applying the background colours, I used another, smaller pallet knife to work on the bed. I hoped that this would give a ‘ruffled’ appearance to the sheets giving it a somewhat representative quality, yet still keeping away from delicate “photorealistic” brush strokes. Due to it being white, I don’t feel the texture is as visible as I would have liked, therefore I plan to add a “dirty glaze” which will hopefully sink in between the marks and give a deeper texture.
As I don’t have any kind of romantic relationship with Lulu I was torn between creating something completely abstract and playing with similar techniques to my previous figurative work but in a looser style. I have also not painted any portraits before and in the image I have chosen Lulu’s face is in clear view. After discussing my ideas with a few friends and peers, I decided to go for a mixture between the two! I really like that the more accurate figures stand out completely from the background making the focus entirely on them rather than the surroundings. It also gave me a better chance to experiment with painting faces, which was really difficult! (see step by step guide!)
Whilst I still need to practice observing and painting anatomy (I intend to take more life drawing classes!), there are a few things I am really proud of in this painting. The main thing is the lace lingerie/stockings. It had never occurred to me before I started that it would be challenging, as I hadn’t really put much thought into the finer details and how I would portray them. I closely studied the work of Adam Hornsby especially in his latest “inspire” collection as he has painted a lot of lingerie. In speaking to him, I found that he prefers to hint at things rather than try and be too realistic. I first painted the colours as an under-painting to keep the colour graduation and whilst it was wet I then used a very fine brush and a dark Vandyke brown paint to hint at floral/lace patterns. I was worried that if I did the same pattern for both figures they may merge into once, therefore when I did the second figure I tried an entirely different pattern. I think this worked really well at separating it and also kept me away from doing anything too lifelike. Another area I felt worked surprisingly well were the shoes, particularly on the right figure. I was concerned they would just become one black shape but I paid close attention to the highlights in the original image and I feel I denoted this really well in the final image.
In future works, I would like to experiment with darker backgrounds as I feel the light colours detract away from the figures and give quite a naïve feel to the overall image. I would like to experiment with different styles/colours/ textures to see how this impacts the overall feel of a painting
