As the fall semester was ending, our last model session in my RCAD afternoon figure class was a costumed situation with a great character model, Michael. We finished the session and semester….and, fortunately I had taken a few shots of him that day. It sparked an idea for a painting of one of my favorite painting subjects, maritime, coastal Maine, fishing, etc. I have a wealth of reference material of this subject! My idea was to combine shots of Michael with an appropriate scene from my files!
I did a couple of small studies, first as graphite thumbnail ,and then oil sketches for an intended larger work. I don’t always do these with every painting. Most of the time I just go for it….but, sometimes it is useful to workout design, color harmonies, by solving some of the potential issues that might be problems. In this case, I’m combining two references and trying to make it fit my concept! These aren’t necessarily what the bigger work will look like. There might be additional adjustments and changes. The danger of doing preliminary studies, in my opinion, is that one might just use up all of the juice on the study! I speak from experience….that has happened to me many times. The result is losing interest in the project! Always a possibility for me!
The goal is to keep the larger work fresh and spontaneous as the study, whether it be an on location study or a studio sketch. I was reasonably happy with these sketches, so I will forge ahead and see what the larger work brings! Thanks for listening to my Cajun ramblings.
Hodges Soileau OPA
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