Today’s session with this figure painting was all about refining my drawing and placement of forms.
I find it interesting that the current state of this figure painting is fairly uninspiring. It looks flat and kind of dead. Yet, the drawing is more accurate than it was in the first session. I have made a great many of improvements, but this is undoubtedly not what makes a figure painting interesting nor does it give it life.
So what does make it look interesting and full of life? I’m not sure…
This is a fundamental question and something I need to work out for myself. My thought is that modeling, or to put it a better way, turning the form in space through value and color change would do the most to breathing some life into this painting. The next aspect that is missing here are edges, I have many sharp edges in this painting that I’m sure is helping to keep it flat.
So, the next step and the next session on this painting will be all about modeling form and edges. I don’t mean to say that I won’t work on drawing, I’m not sure that I can do anything without having to think about drawing. But, the primary focus will be on getting the form to turn.
