Acrylic on Canvas - 18 x 24 inches
I've been collecting examples of figurative work from the various art magazines I get, and trying to grasp what I've been missing in my work. For the most part, I think I've been too cautious with color, and I've been blanching out the skin tones by adding too much white. I also tend to stiffen up and become more and more obsessed with little details, completely missing the piece as a whole, only to step back and hate what I see.
So I decided to go back to a clunker I've been struggling with on and off for a few years now. My goal: to keep the brushwork loose and stay with the bigger brushes. And to keep the focus on the foreground, the back should be even looser and less vibrant.
Well, how did I do? Well, I think I succeeded on all those counts, but I don't really think I've made a better painting out of it. Definitely stronger colors in the skin, and looser brushwork. I think one of the big problems that just won't go away is that the composition isn't very good, and the train should probably just go away since it really has no meaning.
This is definitely the last time I work on this one. Unless...
1 comment:
I agree you succeeded on all counts. I don't think the composition is bad, just odd. I like the way she is looking out of the frame, I wonder what she is seeing/thinking about. You could probably search for some existential symbolic meaning for the train that will tie it all together.
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