I’ve started toying with the idea of sketching the subject with paint rather than painting with paint. The paintings I was doing were okay but they werne’t wowing me at all and I was never really happy with the final outcome of them. So I started switching up my technique; I’m painting on a smaller size and with a lot more carelessness. I start by quickly painting on the canvas all over as a background/under-laying colour, this gives me something to work on top of. The disadvantage of this though is that I can’t work directly onto the canvas straight after painting on it, I have to give it a few days to dry and for the colour to settle onto the canvas. When that has happened I then use my reference picture to trace the outline of the face. I tend to start with the nose and work my way outwards. This gives me a good starting point and lets me gauge the proportions of the face a lot better. I use black acrylic paint for this, I wanted a harsh colour and something that would provide definitive lines that would show through the block colour I would put on after. Black proved really effective here, although I’m sure a burnt umber or dark purple would do the same job. The black gave the classic sketching look that I liked and almost looks like it was done with charcoal or Indian Ink. I then start to block in some parts of the background with the black, this harshness helps cement the face as part of the image, I’ve found. Without doing this the face almost looks like a floating head and there’s nothing to ground the image. Another way of grounding the features is that I left some of the red paint from the background showing through the face.
I then start to block in some of the shadows and highlights. Using a flesh tone and yellow ocher as well as a little bit of golden yellow, it helps to bring some definition and contour to the face. The flesh tone also acted as a highlight to provide some dimension to the painting and compliment the contours from the darker colour. When defining the features I left it very rough but also left out some information such as the hair, the hair wasn’t integral to the image and I think it would have detracted from the overall effect of the painting; by providing a finished piece it is slightly more conclusive for the viewer to see whereas by leaving out some parts and leaving it unfinished it allows the viewer to help fill in some missing parts. Unless the viewer read this blog post or my sketchbooks they would not know that this is from a porn film however with this ambiguity the viewer can come to their own conclusion. The role of the viewer in my work isn’t entirely integral to its success but its something to note.
After I block shade and light in I then use the black and start to go back in; I then go back and forth between this until I’m happy. I also use some of these block colours in the background as this allows to create a harmonious image. Although I am interested in creating a cohesive image that flows I still want an unfinished quality that comes from sketching. This could also be a “rough painting” or a study before the bigger painting. I’m not interested in doing bigger paintings that signify the end result of something though; I’m really interested in the idea of a continued body of work that evolves and remains inconclusive. Rather than bouncing from one project to the next, completing each one with a satisfactory ending, I prefer to keep it open ended.
