First painting evaluation
When it came to painting the image, I worked in stages (as laid out in the images). I mainly worked wet-on-wet as I really like the way the colours blend with wet oil paint. I worked on board for this image as, in my previous experiments, I found that canvas can change shape and warp quite easily; it can also be difficult to put pressure on areas that are not supported by the canvas frame. I also like the much smoother background texture to work over, I feel the paint flows more freely and it is very enjoyable to paint on. Something I have since noticed is that wood is much more durable than canvas and takes up a lot less storage space, it is much easier to accidentally damage a canvas than it is a piece of wood, however the corners can be easily knocked on a piece of wood, unlike on a canvas. In the long-term, wood may also be cheaper to purchase than canvas (especially in large amounts, and requires no “stretching”, though it does need to be primed in the same way a canvas does). Having since spoken to Alec in the “Original Art Shop”, Derby (a Fine Art Trade Guild commended framer), I found out that wooden paintings are often easier to frame than canvas paintings (for reasons such as those already mentioned).
In previous figurative paintings I have experimented with, I found it very easy to “over-blend” the tones and make the skin look very plastic-like, giving an almost alien-like appearance, so in this piece I tried hard to keep the brush marks and use a slightly more impressionistic technique to apply paint, which allowed me to retain marks, create texture and form. As in previous works, I started with an outline, then worked from dark to light flesh tones before moving onto the background. I realised that I should have painted the background first as there were some small, quire difficult angles to fill in once the body had already been painted, I would do this differently in future works!
I found the hair especially difficult to paint, at first I worked with block colours as I had done for the body but it didn’t look right at all so after I had finished the rest of the painting, I went back and re-worked this with a very tiny brush putting in almost individual hairs which I am now much happier with.
When I took my painting into college, people commented that the angles for the back wall looked wrong, they couldn't tell it was one wall in front of another (at two separate angles), divided by a staircase. In future, I will consider this much more at the photography stage, perhaps it would have worked better against a flat wall or if I had faded the background out into black to show Lucy just in a “pool of light” rather than in the actual setting. A more “fantasy” based backdrop or landscape might be interesting to experiment with in future works.
I still intend to add a final glaze to the painting; I plan to add a blue glaze to the top of the staircase to push it further into the background and to add a “dirty glaze” to the skirting-board to make it stand out less and push it further into the background. This will hopefully also highlight textures and help to unify the painting.
Overall, I am not tremendously happy with this painting; I think this is due to the above-mentioned areas to develop along with having no personal connection to the sitter. However, I do feel it is a very definite improvement on skin tones, anatomy and mark making from previous works. Ways that I would like to progress with figurative works include: experimenting with different, less literal representations of settings/backgrounds, bolder mark making techniques, and working with people I have a stronger connection with. I would like to produce work that is less of an academic study and more expressive of the way I feel. I want my work to represent the emotional connections I have to my sitters.
