Wood Panel Spring Break Underpainting

So again I started with the more organic action painting, splatter, abstraction. very therapeutic process that enables me to release any potential for "artist block." After prepping the canvas in this manner I moved on to locating large areas of color, lights and shadows. I am again working from a crappy polaroid photo so a flash and distorted tones prove an obstacle again. I start out very flat again, isolation certain ambiguous planes.

adding some saturated tones and laying down second coats.

this photograph was taken at night so it appears much darker.as you can see more rendering of piano, block, figure and birds has occurred. More shadows on the figure. must create some sort of horizon line to push depth.

detail of some of the texture in the block.

perspective

I encountered many obstacles in this piece. I wanted to be playful with the whacky illusion of space in a dimensionless atmosphere. Based on a lot of the critique papers I was able to acknowledge that the intent was not achieved. I realized I was painting the figures much too flat and spent the majority of my time pushing them back into this imaginary space. when it came to rendering the wall and conduit, a more cartoonish, loose, and incomplete effect occurred. this piece is still very unfinished especially in these aspects. the flaking wall was intentional but I can understand why it reads as "not thought out." overall I am kind of disappointed in the final presentation of this piece and hope to work out the issues in the next piece

finally achieving some sort of depth, working past the flatness and pushing figures back in space. This proves rather difficult since I am working from a flash Polaroid photograph with real poor form definition. mostly guess work.

Some folk I really need to study!

David Kassan has been a recent influence, I finally remembered his name and was able to grab a bunch of shots. These are great, this guy is crazy goodSean Cheetham another contemporary oil painter that wrestles with figure and space