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Nude Painting of Meg
by admin on Jun.01, 2009, under Portrait/Figurative
I started on this nude painting of Meg today. She was very kind to have sat for me for the long 4 hour session and I think she may come back for another session tomorrow.
Meg had a very light skin tone which reflected a lot of surrounding colors which produced very soft but colorful skin tones. She reminded me of the models in the old masters’ paintings where the females had very light skins back then.
Her eye regions were very dark due to her very long black eyelashes and maybe some make-ups and it really added great contrast against her very light skin tone. The eyes really stood out.
I started this nude painting by trasferring a preliminary drawing I did on the canvas. Then when the outlines were accurately traced, I began throwing on the colors with thick oil paints. For her skin tone, I have used the alizarin crimson, cadmium red, yellow achre, hint of cereulean blue, hint of viridian, and lots of titanium white. For the shadow areas of the skin, I used he complimentary colors of the ones I have just mentioned, combined with some ultramarine blue and burnt umber.
After i have worked on the figure and the head for some time, I started to add some background tones to have the figure pop out more. I intensely observed the color contrasts of the figure against the background and found that it is basically the red (background) against its complimentary green (figure) that I needed to look for. The figure definitely doesn’t necessarily look green but I knew that I should keep that in mind to contrast it with the red background.
I also exaggerated on the dark edges separating the figure and the red sofa to make the figure really come forward. Then I spent my last 30 minutes or so just working on the portrait, refining and tightening things up.
Im looking forward to working more on this nude painting tomorrow.
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June 18th, 2009 on 2:24 pm
Beautiful work. You are awesome in capturing details and moods.
June 19th, 2009 on 5:54 pm
Really nice work, although I would add that the painting as a whole is of importance, not just the figure. Treat the background like you would treat the subjects face and or figure. Background and foreground must have equity with regard to importance.
My two cents.
dj
June 20th, 2009 on 9:13 pm
Hi– saw your craigslist posting asking for advice.
Your skintones are nice (not too bright– they’re real), and your proportions are spot-on. What you need to work on next is cleanliness of work; straighten, smooth, and blend the edges where the model meets the couch.
Pull out shadows too– your lines are perfect, but your values are somewhat flat. She’ll come alive off teh canvas if you darken your darks and bring greater subtlety to the values within the shapes.
Finally– it’s my own weakness too, but Kebreau is right. And if you don’t give detail to the background, then, make the figure bigger and force the background into a secondary role.
June 20th, 2009 on 11:17 pm
Very nice work & you can paint me if you like..
fReeDom 2 eXpreSs
June 20th, 2009 on 11:49 pm
Thank you all for the compliments and advices. Everything is just a lay-in for now except the face. It would be nice if I could detail and polish everything in such limited time. The reason I try to finish the face first instead of building up the painting as a whole, is because the face of the model usually looks quite different each sitting, and I always found it wise to finish an area that would change or move first, when working from life. Hopefully the model will come back again soon for me to continue with the piece.