Part Three – Project ‘People in context’ – Exercise “A figure in an interior”

For this exercise I was not able to use a live model and didn’t have time to take any pictures of poses that I could use. Therefore I turned to the internet and perused loads of images until I found one which I thought met the brief and that I felt comfortable with attempting to paint. The image I found reminded me of some of the Edward Hopper paintings I had been looking at as part of Research point 3. I will write a bit more on these paintings in a separate blog for Research point 3. In the meantime the three paintings are shown below.

The photograph that I decided to use for this exercise shows a woman reclining on a sofa in a hotel room. There are a lot of similarities between it and the Hopper paintings above.

I started by making a couple of sketches to try out the composition and also to try out getting the posture of the woman correct.

 

I decided to work on a silver ground. I’m not sure why I purchased this colour, I believe that I thought it was grey and only later discovered that it was silver. However it has proved to be useful as it has a reflective quality that captures light well. I made an initial sketch on the ground paying particular attention to getting the perspective of the couch correct. Having done this I worked up the painting by starting on the couch and the back ground before moving onto the woman. I didn’t take any photographs of the work in progress so it is straight to the finished painting.

I feel that I have captured the pose and that the woman looks to be located both on the sofa and in the space. Her face looks a little elongated but is still believable. I’m happy  with the way that I have captured the light and shadows and also the suggested landscape outside the window.

• Part 3 Portrait and Figure