I’ve “finished” another painting.  This one was quite labor intensive and nerve wracking just like the last.  I suppose it is no coincidence that they are painted on exactly the same size canvas.

This one started off as a little sketch in my sketchbook.  A sketch that I don’t think I even included when I put up snapshots of some of the sketches.

Originally there was no ribbon in it (as you can see above), but when I started sketching it out it just sort of showed up.

So I started off with this sketch and decided to make this into my next painting. With the ribbon I realized that this was sort of like a sequel to the only painting from my college days that anyone seemed to actually like:

Since I wasn’t working from a photo this time I just decided to dig in. I bought the canvas and started drizzling paint on it. I never really know what to do with the backgrounds on these “figurative” pieces. The backgrounds on my college pieces like this were almost just flat color – and it detracted from the pieces every time, so I wanted to at least have some texture with this one. I was fairly happy with the results of that experiment. I actually did the set-up on another canvas at the same time that I’ll paint later (maybe next?).

And then I just dove right into putting the sketch on canvas. I don’t think I even bothered to grid it first.

At this point I was liking the way the paint looked. I showed it to Sam later that day and she noticed that… well… the figure looks ridiculous.

I had to make a decision that I always hate doing, but is often the only way to move forward. I had to start over. And not even on the same canvas. So now I have no idea what to do with this canvas. I like that background, but the foreground takes up too much space. I guess that is a problem I’ll work out later.

So I started over, but resolved to actually do some better groundwork this time.  Not many know this, but one of the things Sam used to be is a gymnast, so I convinced her to let me take reference shots (clothed, of course!). The actual position in the piece is technically probably impossible, and we didn’t have a harness or anything, so I took photos of different parts at a time and referenced each one when making a final sketch.

I picked a new, more vertical canvas and gridded it before putting down the sketch.

Now, I really like how this sketch looked and almost felt it was a shame to paint over it. In many ways, the initial energy you can see here is lost in the final piece…. but let’s just pretend I didn’t say that and you didn’t read it, okay?

next was an initial background:

And then I thought “why not some kind of blur in the middle?”

and my answer was “because it looks lame.” But I decided to start working on the flesh and finish the background later.

and then some ribbons

make the skin more pink and the ribbons more…well…3D

and then further refine the ribbons

But what to do about that background, right? How about at big beam of light (or something)?

Sigh, … because that looks lame too I took my problem to photoshop and tried to figure something out there before committing more expensive cobalt blue to the canvas.

Hmmm, okay, lets give that a try then:

hmmm, naaaah, not doing it for me. Okay, how about a more natural background… To the Photo Shop!

That looks cool I suppose, let’s give it a try:

Okay, one day and the water and mountains are done. Let’s get on with this sky…

ummm, no, that isn’t working…

Well, that looks more like clouds… but it is too distracting from the actual figure… oooh, and don’t forget how clouds are all sort of stretched and slanted in one direction usually…

Dammit! Who knew it was so hard to paint a night sky?! Okay, how about a sky without clouds? Well, I started on that and realized that it might look cool with some hazy clouds still in there and stars shining. I finally got a decent looking sky and so touched up some other areas and drew out the hair.

Still some problems here – like the face/side of head area. Doesn’t look quite right to me… and the fingers of the right hand just look like little blobs… some of the ribbon isn’t settling over the water quite right… but…. I’ve been working on this one piece for over five weeks. Time to let go.