PROJECT 4.1 PAINTING

Greyscale photo

Charcoal drawing

Tonal sketch

Starting in colour

This is the toughest thing.  It is so different working with paint rather than a drawing medium.  Much quicket.  I like the tonal sketch, but doing it in colour a different story.  Colours here exaggerated, but whole thing loses its sense of mystery and depth.  We shall see as I work on this piece.  Such a struggle to be patient with the colour mixing.  Too much blue in top area, the shadow in barn should be darker, even if it is not in reality. Have another two or three hours allowed in the project for this one.

Stage 3

 A bit of time on this today after break in London, looking at paintings...My job is to look and look again until at least I get the basic drawing and tones right.  But may find I need to manipulate the tone a bit to make the background view more dramatic. Sooo difficult.

Stage 4

 Lightened front area and area on right, had a go at the dye pots on the table, did something on the background/see through, area on right still wrong. will do more on that before stopping on this one.  Area about door needs work too, more gradation. Area on right to work within overall balance of lights and darks.  At present it looks too light, really it is the central part above the paper rolls that are wrong.  I have not looked carefully at that area.

Stage 5

 This photo not really quite right, but made some adjustments.  Enjoyed doing the dye pots and the things on the right and on the shelves.  Will set up still life pieces alongside project work. Quite pleased with this.  Felt clearer today, more relaxed, took my time mixing the paint and looking at tones.  The green paint above door very important. I like the pink splodge on the apron.  This was a pretty complicated subject and today it started to come together.

This only started to happen after about four hours altogether on this piece, once I had got the main areas of tone and colour in.  I could have developed it a lot more, but willl draw a line for now as per the OCA book.  Really pleased, unexpected result.  Yesterday felt pessimistic about this. But with some tweaking it started to come alive.  Working on right area section, the section above door and the jars.