Above are some of the paintings I’ve been working on recently. They are quite large in size and are definitely challenging me in terms of my technique and ease of painting. When I was painting on a smaller size it was much easier to move about and to manipulate the conditions I was painting in but when I paint on a large size like this the way I paint and all the factors in painting are very much determined by the size of the painting.
I like the idea of working on a large scale and I think the photographic images I’m painting definitely work well on a larger scale. However I need to find a way to paint on a large size without totally distorting the image. I’ve found that the bigger I go with canvas/surface size the more distorted the image becomes and the less effective the image is. I’d like to try to simplify the images by not fussing with them too much and by not being too precious with them but I don’t want to totally lose all detail. I need to strike a balance between it all.
In addition to the large paintings I’ve been working on smaller figure paintings where I’ve just been sketching people in everyday life. Although this doesn’t really have anything directly to do with my project I think studying the figure in situations like this will indirectly inform my paintings. By understanding the human form better, in theory, it will help improve my paintings where I paint the human face. And hopefully I’ll be able to progress into painting the human figure onto a large scale like these.
