“Judy.”
What a great week! The weather is still unfriendly for the outdoors painters, but I went for another full week at the Sarum studio in Salisbury. And again I have chosen to paint rather than drawing. I like drawing, especially in charcoal, but painting at the studio is always good practice and fun. It is all about learning to paint skin tones, in shadow, or in light, hair, clothes and backgrounds.
During the morning sessions I painted a seated nude, for which I used the largest canvas I ever used for life painting, 60 X 80 cm (24” X 32”). It was a great exercise and I pushed myself harder than usual and this is a good thing. I think that trying to push oneself harder and stretching your limits is the way of progressing. I was quite pleased with the result and I think I have had a little break through in the life painting.
For the afternoon sessions I wanted to do another portrait, which I wanted to be my weekly painting. Hence, I pushed myself even harder. I painted Judy, the model from the studio and is my only second painted portrait, not counting my selfie into that.
I painted both life painting and portrait using the sight size method.
I used a reduced palette, for the portrait, just Italian Cassel, burnt umber, Indian red, light Red, yellow ochre and white, adding ivory black for the background and black, Ultramarine blue and manganese blue for the blouse. I used turpentine to thin the paints and some diluted de Mayerne medium. For the first layers (underpainting), I only used turpentine. I tried to put the highlights with thicker paint than the rest of the painting.
For the hair I started with the darks, for which I used the burnt umber, than I did a layer with Indian red, but was too red, so I switched to light red, that I used for the skin tone as well.
So, here it is:
“Judy”
Oil on linen.
50 X 60 cm (20” X 24”).
