7 December. Learning, studio chats and unpicking bad habits with digital scribble.

Catalogue Essay lecture in the morning - some new Harvard Referencing information and reminders about quality research and resources. 

              

                       

Studio shot. I might move to the other painting for a bit - but had liked how quickly the paint was drying, working like this so had kept going on one. Possibly a mistake as I normally jump between paintings, applying learning as I jump between them.

                                               

This has become a test /warm up

I used some poppyseed medium over the sansodor to see how it went over before starting on the bigger painting.

• I'm really please with my canvas prep and am using mediums that I'm figuring out.
• I'm trying to pace myself and walk away /review paintings when things aren't moving in the direction that I want
• But, I still fall into a fight with what I see in the reference and how my brain thinks it should change an angle - I always seem to tilt something the wrong way.
• I started reworking the below painting to correct the nose and mouth - they were a bit small and not positioned quite right. 
• Then as I carried on painting, couldn't shake that the eyes were off.
• Spoke to Laura W who pointed out the angle - I've literally tilted the face to a more straight yet angled position which throws the eyes out. 

 

    These 3 images are the stage I picked up from after yesterday / the reference /   where I ended up with the eye on the left too high because the face is on the wrong angle.

  

After changing the mouth and nose I'd thought the chin was off but plumped it and added some darker tones to give some volume to the cheeks -but I thought it was getting a bit dark and couldn't put my finger on where it was off until I spoke to Laura.

I had softened the tones and eye sockets but still couldn't see where it was off.

Had a mess around digitally with the image after speaking to Laura - I really need to decide now whether to paint over or to try and remove some paint first before painting over.

The angle of the face makes a massive difference. - Will have to fix it tomorrow.

Went back to the pre painting and can see that this was also off - I need to be 100% sure that the planning stage is right or it throws everything else out - I just end up leaning into the wrong things and start focusing more on tones and shapes and shades -blindly trusting that my initial map is ok.