I've painted a few statues in the past and really loved doing them. This one is no different. I started with just a bit of paint to put on a base color of this statue. Then I just painted all the shadows. I allowed those to give form and shape to the statue. After several layers of shadows and a little rounding of the edges, this statue looks like it is 3 dimensional.
I also put on a very dramatic background. Mixing reds and blues around this statue that has lots of yellow and green in it make the image jump off the page. Contrasting colors will always make images pop from your paper.
Like I said I had a great time with this. If you want to see how I did it, take a look at the following video. It's sped up because the whole painting took me about an hour to do, and I didn't want anyone to have to sit through an hour of me talking. Check it out, its pretty good.
Here is my latest painting. It is another statue. This one of an angel. She has obviously been outside for a long time and has moss growing on her in places. I've added just enough details to her body and wings to give her form, but the overall impression I wanted someone to take away is that of her have sat outside for a long time.
I started painting her with a base color of payne's grey for her body, then slowly added in some van dyke brown in some shadowy areas, or anywhere that I wanted to make her a bit warmer. (as the payne's grey can get a little cold sometime) I just gave indications of some shadow lines on her body and her wings. They give just enough detail. I kept her face as clean and as bright as I could. I wanted it to be a bit lighter than everything else on the paintings. This was to make her face the focal point of this painting. I'll be t you did it subconsciously. You looked at the entire painting, but your eyes kept coming back to her face.
I'm happy with this painting. I might go back and make the background even a little darker, which would make her a little lighter by contrast, and therefore jump off the page a little more. But if I never get around to doing that, I'm happy with what I have here.
If you have not seen my video of this painting, I've got a link below. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy it.
