Today’s was the fourth painting session on Girl in the Purple Boots II. I think it’s far enough along now that you can get a sense of what it is about. I’m in my second pass with the painting. The first pass is a rough-in with local color (each pass can take a number of sessions). The second pass firms up the drawing and I pay more attention to the relationships between areas. The third pass is the finishing one, although some areas might need several ‘finishing passes.’ How many depends on how strong the drawing is. If corrections are needed, it takes longer, of course.
What’s makes a drawing strong? When it pleases my eye–I have a critical eye.
My technique used to be more complicated but I’ve parred it down to the minimum. It takes time to cover large canvases, and, as the painting develops, I constantly make adjustments. It’s never possible to work everything out beforehand. Besides, what would be the fun of that?
Girl in the Purple Boots II, is larger than its companion, Girl in the Purple Boots I, shown below. The new painting is 44″ x 60″ and the version I finished earlier this year is 40″ x 50.”
Both paintings are composed from photos I took in Manhattan last year. I cobbled together figures from several photos for both compositions. All the figures in Girl in the Purple Boots I are in the second version except the left-most two. Of course, all the figures have moved and are in different postures. I also removed figures from the composition that, for some reason or another, I didn’t think added to the design. For example, the man in blue shirt in version II was also in the photos used for version I, but I removed him from the design.
I am doing the same thing, that is, using multiple photographs of the same people from the same location, in my Playhouse Square series. I have a number of paintings in progress in that series, and I started the drawing for a large painting, 48″ x 60″, earlier this week.
I am excited about my Playhouse Square series. I spent a lot of time this year taking photographs in and around Cleveland’s Playhouse Square, and as a result, I have a trove of usable photos to work with.