THE NEW PROJECT

The criteria:

• Something with subdued tones
• Integrate it with a background/landscape (no floating figures)
• Nudes. I want to try a 'new' technique (Titian's) for figures.
• No sack of potatoes. The figures must be animated and involved in a narrative
• At least two figures that are interacting. No mopey models listening to their ipods.
• No message. No intelligence. The intelligence must be in the design

With those considerations I leaved through my old sketchbooks to see what I could find.

I poured over old sketchbooks to find drawings that might inform this

In any case, a new drawing will need to be done as I work out all the lights and darks and the background. At some point I will need to find a theme. He seems to be offering a proposal that shocks her. Is it Death and the Maiden? His left forearm requires adjustment.

Then, using Virtual Pose 3, I grabbed some model images that might also assist in the imagining

I may steal that 6th figure complete for my female lead.

To the drawing board.

First attempt

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I've changed my plans. My canvases are too small (and for now I wish to work on small canvases) to do the whole composition with proper detail so I will instead experiment with the Titian technique on a single figure.

	Titian's Venus d'Urbino. It is the softness of flesh that I hope to get out of this process.
	Using this figure, I'll try to make the lighting more dramatic but using my previous techniques, that would have resulted in strong colours in the flesh. Maybe this Titian technique will let me highlight contrasts and tones while still maintaining flesh tones.
	Step one is to tint the background and then draw out the figure in a Burnt Umber + Medium mix. Use additional medium to erase as necessary.
	Step two is to paint the figure in greys. I'm using a Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue for my grey. So far the legs are working but I need to invest more care in the head and hands. details. smaller brushes. I'm rebelling against how light the front of her torso is becoming. The theory is that I do the whole figure in a medium grey and then put in highlights and lowlights. To that end, I am thinking that I need to focus on the primary line of shade and I am not supposed to be darkening the shaded parts.
	The painting was left for a few days to dry at this stage with a few more touches being applied while waiting.
	The second sitting begins with a medium + medium grey paste painted evenly over the whole figure but done so that the under painting shows through. Then white highlights are put in again and blended. I've commenced to block in the white of bed sheets when I seem determined that this will be a Pauline painting.
	The piece spent several days drying and then I approached it again.
	This was a tough step. It called for over painting the grey with a halfpaste of 'fleshtone'. A halfpaste is made by mixing an opaque paint with plenty of medium but, as I started the upper body, it became apparent that all mediums are not alike. By the time I got to the lower body I was using no linseed oil but only a straight wax medium with the slightest colouration of pigment. Eventually I wiped away everything done on the upper body (which sort of worked) and then repainted the wax paste overtop. This photo also shows the following step where a 'vermillion' is painted in areas where I will want more colour. This was also done with a half paste. It looks very harsh.
	The next step has it starting to look like something. I get to apply opaque highlights of a lighter flesh tone. Now, what I am getting is nothing like a flesh tone but I can work toward that in later projects. For now I am proceeding and seeing if I can get the tones. Most importantly, I think, is that for the first time I use a fan brush for blending. No longer do the strokes show completely but I brush them til they are almost gone. The under painting can still be seen and I find it a little too grey for my tastes.
	Instructions were to leave the face blank and I'll be going in to do that now with a smaller brush now that I have a better handle on the techniques. While the instructions only said to draw thin umber lines to detail the hands, I went ahead and put in a few more solid lines to remind me of the shape of the figure. They stand out starkly here.
	Here I have gone back in with highlights in a slightly different tone to get the multiple hues of flesh better. I've also started to carefully blend the stark lines a bit. I am happy with certain aspects of it and, in future projects, I will know to increase the contrasts in the under painting if that is what I am after. More pink, less ochre. yup.
	May 2012 and I am giving it another go. We shall see what comes of it.
	And then in April 2013 it chose to become a Venetian Leda
	There's what it ended up being.

ART AND ART ESSAYS