Painting Challenge 1. Sketch - First Phase.

At last! Some real sketches for the Drawing Vault. An explanation of what they are 'for' is required, because they don't stand on their own; they are sketches of a painting I intend to send into a competition/challenge in a couple of weeks. I posted the full story on my other blog, Painting Vault, yesterday.

I have accepted a challenge to paint a picture, send it in to a website and have it published. Well that sounded prosaic and dull, but luckily for me there is a fantastic and extremely generous artist in the USA who has started a blog 'challenge', open to all, where a photograph is put up every two weeks and anyone can create a painting based on that photograph. The basis of the challenge is to be 'inspired' by the photograph and use it as a basis for our art. The photograph is extremely challenging in itself as a subject - a shot of a window display for wigs! Who would have thought of issuing such a challenge to artists? Here is the photo:

So what on earth can one do with such a subject? I would never have noticed this display and I guess that's what this challenge is all about; stretching oneself. What flashed into my mind after staring at this picture for ages, was something probably a few steps too far from any real recognisable representation of the photo above. Here's what I am going to do: I am going to create an 8"x10" oil on canvas of myself painting a fresco, partially finished, with these heads and wigs turned into either minstrels or angels. Okay, well, that's the idea and I had to get home tonight to do a rough, very rough, composition of what I wanted to create. These are give below. You can see the development of the rough idea with all its tentative, pale marks, developing into something a little more confident and resolved. I have also learned a lot from doing this sketch which took about an hour inbetween serving dinner and making tea. I hope to post more sketches tomorrow. The only problem I have is that I have two weeks to complete this painting and I only have weekends. If only it was high Summer with available light after work...... Apologies for the photography....it will get better soon.

First tentative sketch.

Figures more resolved and the addition of myself.

Mapping in the oval as a compositional device


Random Sketch - Close Up


Close up of detail


Key Figure emerging on the left.


Close Up of Key Figure.