Sunday, February 7, 2010

Starting work again at last....

I have been into the studio and made a start on another painting. I did not manage to get a lot of work done, but I feel better for starting. Although I am back on more steroids I still have a bit of a wheeze and remnants of the cough. My energy levels are quite high, but my fitness levels aren't, so I start something and realize halfway through I can't carry on.
I have planned out and laid the base coats on the painting, and left them to dry out. At the moment the background layer is just a strong dark deep red, which will more or less dissapear as the work progresses. My next step is to start adding details into the base painting of the sea-bream so I can be fairly set in the colouring and style of this aspect before I work on the peacock feathers and the background. I will take a photo of this first stage before I start, and another at the end of my next session. I am not sure if I will post them as works-in-progress though, I may post the full series with the finished piece in one post, or I may not post them at all. I think it will depend on how the work progresses, and how happy I am with the way it has gone.
Working on and through ideas, does not always allow the process to be visible, as they can become very confused and cluttered and even worse unresolved. I see the proposed painting in my mind, and at first it seems to gel and work, but when it becomes a physical object that can be analysed and studied it often shows weaknesses not apparent in the planning -- a bit like a dream not reflecting the reality.

I am hoping to start the work using previous studies and images rather than the actual still-life subject (another sea-bream) due to the short bursts I will be working in. With so little fitness short spells of work are going to be called for and I will end up using a lot of fish during work on one piece if I don't. I will save the fish in the freezer until I start working with the peacock feathers. I will need to see the way one of the feathers lays across the fish, as I intend to have one doing that in the painting -- but this is subject to change.

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