Hi Everyone, I’m back with the second part of my abstract figure painting: Sunday Morning. This piece was an exploration on paper because I really wasn’t sure if it was canvas “worthy”. I’m trying to have a more consistent practice of exploring an idea, figure, or landscape, on paper first (but large) before deciding if I want to paint it on canvas. If after the first go it still interests me then I feel like it has enough leg to paint again. Recently, I painted these three sisters on an older hot pink prepped canvas but after getting it out once, I didn’t feel the drive to continue to explore the idea, at least not right now.
With Sunday however, my interest in that gesture is still there. Also I have several pics of poses similar to this and the idea of a Sunday series is intriguing me. The casual gesture, the loose paint, and bright color are what I want to bring forward in each painting.
So in the video I show briefly how I take a pic of a painting in progress and edit it in Procreate on my iPad. I only do really basic changes, like background color, in Procreate because I don’t think it has many tools for this, but it can get me unstuck or prevent me from wasting another layer of paint. I find the more paint I use the deader the image becomes.
After this one on paper was finished, I decided to do more digital work on it just to explore different color palettes. The original colors are a little too.. Easter for me. I felt like it needed to go either more de-saturated or more saturated. It’s a bit too in-between as is. I opened it up in photoshop since I needed more tools than I could find on any app. I used a mix of the color replacer tool, the paint brush, and smudge to explore different color palettes. I didn’t put any work into the details, so it looks rough. I just wanted an idea. I end up loving the bright pink, navy/purple, and yellow combo below.
Now I just have to order up some hot pink oil paint because I only have pink in acrylic. Hoping I can find one bright enough! I plan to work on loose canvas putting down an under painting in acrylic and then fine-tuning in oil.
Test runs: Painting on paper and digital editing