May's Charcoal

May's Charcoal
Seated Nude - Charcoal on Paper
(SOLD)

I have a massive feeling of accomplishment with this drawing.
Why? Because the model loved it to the point of wanting to buy it!

And I love the light on the hair falling down in front of her face.

Standing Nude - oil painting - Alla prima

Standing Nude - Alla Prima
Oil on canvas - 25cm x 36cm

This is from the archives - which in my case is a pile of paintings that have been stacked away in a dark cupboard, mostly of unfinished paintings and paintings that desperately deserve to be shredded... finding this one was a nice little surprise.

The model for this painting was a lovely mother of one in her early thirties, she decided she wanted to try modeling for an artist group - we were very happy that she chose us. She has a lovely figure and a very pleasant manor.

The paint on here is very thin on a canvas roughly primed with gesso, it's the texture in the gesso that you see, not really the brush strokes.

The painting was completed in one two hour session so the size was a perfect fit for the amount of painting time I had available, any bigger and it would have looked incomplete - smaller and it would have looked overworked.

Diane - 7 November 2007

This was a short sitting (about 1 hour) and it was a with the purpose of trying Richard Schmidt's technique of working the drawing out of a mix of burnt sienna and ivory black.

It's a fairly simple technique, but can be very difficult to master. I was lucky with this one; I liked the result.

The painting starts by covering the entire canvas with a thinned mixture of burnt sienna and ivory black (the mix should be blotchy so that you have patches of sienna and patches of black) - the mixture is thinned with turpentine. Once the canvas is prepared it needs a short while to dry, it's time to start painting again once the paint no longer is able to run.

The painting is then done by both painting fresh tones of the sienna / black mix and by using a cloth to rub away the coloured texture causing highlights. I.e. Paint the darks and rub out the lights.

The pose is exactly as was in Richard Schmidt's book and I followed his instructions closely. This was to be the under painting with a more complete colour painting worked over it, but I liked it so much that I was compelled to stop.

We had a small exhabition at the office (I work for a large South African retailer) and this painting was sold within the first hour of being on display. It was never meant to be a finished work of art so I the selling price was very low (the buyer actually gave me more than my asking price!)

Oil on board - SOLD