Roll 4, anacrusis #6

They are dancers, but still no title. iPhone photo taken at night, so colour corrected and upped the exposure, right side catching a bit of light-glare, so the 'burn tool' applied to the right (@ 13%), probably giving it more contrast than the real piece... which is about 5'5" long (as tall as me) and 2' wide. Been working on this for a week, ok, really, in concept since last Fall, think it's just about 'there.'

The figures are composed from a film, Test. I saw Test on TV last November (2015) and fell in love with the dance sequences. So I ordered the film from Amazon and studied it, watching the dance sequences over and over and over. I cannot afford a model, let alone models. In a film, I can study the figures in motion and get a sense of volume in space as they twist and turn and as the camera views them from different angles. I know these figures from all sides and could paint them front or back. There was not a moment in the film where three dancers looked like this. The painting is my own composition as are decisions about lighting. Of course, I took some liberty with the facial features, changing this and that, and the anatomy, the anatomy which is such a challenge and so rewarding after the years of Conceptual blandness, is in my own style.
___

 

Roll 4, anacrusis#5

This painting is now close to completion. The guy on the right took most of the afternoon and evening. Painting with watercolour is nerve-wracking. Much easier if it was acrylic or oils – one could just wipe off any changes. This is not possible with watercolor.

You can lift watercolour paint from the paper by wetting and blotting it - not fully, but usually enough. But when you add wet paint on top of dried watercolour all the colours re-activate. I'm using a nearly drybrush technique with the whitener - and hoping to keep the colour underneath. Any mistakes and I have to wet and blot and it goes through all the layers and I get a 'hole' that is very hard to fill to look like the original layers again.

Anyway, that said, the guy on the right is currently dominating the painting. I need to do the shadows on his face and hair, and the highlights, and then see. The guy on the left has trousers on, and his hips are in deep shadow. But if I do that, all of the figures will lift off the background and not be integrated into the swirl of blue.

My daughter, who's only seen the image here, thinks maybe to leave the guy on the right 'faceless' and so I am considering that too. Then the painting is about the central figure, and the other two are half-formed, sinking into a background that they are emerging from.

(iPhone 6s+ photo late at night, colour corrected for the exposure and the blues but the oranges became muted)
___

 

Roll 4, anacrusis #4

Progressing slowly, slowly... took this in the bright light of late afternoon sun and a daylight bulb, so the photo may be a little paler than the painting is.

(By anacrusis I mean the poetry definition: "one or more syllables at the beginning of a line of poetry that are regarded as preliminary to and not a part of the metrical pattern." Which, I think, is from Webster's dict.)
___

 

Roll 4, anacrusis #3

While this painting awaits a title, I am going to number the images of its slow, incremental, and often for me somewhat torturous, development. It is 'Roll 4, anacrusis#3,' and by anacrusis I mean the poetry definition: "one or more syllables at the beginning of a line of poetry that are regarded as preliminary to and not a part of the metrical pattern." Who knows what the final iteration of this painting will be - while it is going in unexpected directions, I am on a discernable painterly path now with it now and will see what is developing through to the end. Another iPhone 6s+ photo, untouched.
___

 

Painting continues to progress

Was going to draw the figures in charcoal overtop the background wash, but it wasn't working. The background is not a light enough wash. So I have begun the long process of painting the figures in. This is the central figure and after I post this I will go and paint the shadows on his other hand. I don't want this painting to be too 'finished' - it has to be quite raw, and by this I mean I hope to keep the elemental quality. A painting in progress -cell photo (untouched). © Brenda Clews 2016. 5'x2', Watercolour on Canson Montval 140lb archival cold press watercolour paper.
___