Painting From Life

Life Painting concerns recording the subject you see directly in front of you. This is probably the best exercise in developing your hand and eye coordination in art. While it is good to practice copying two dimensional images such as drawings and paintings it does not give you a real understanding of the subject in a real situation.

It can be daunting to see a subject in front of you and I can assure you I have felt that feeling before. The thought `where do I start` is often the first to jump out at you. My recommendation is to select a single object such as an orange and place it on a piece of material or against a wall or board if you have one. By doing this you can see the relationship of the orange as a 3d shape against its background and surrounding. This will immediately help you to understand the difference in light and dark areas that you need to paint. Also it is wise in my experience to select an object that you can practice. At this point you will probably think that it is not very exciting. However in the example above it is important to be able to place the orange in a believable space before moving onto more complex setups.

Before you lay any major colours down it is now time to make some initial marks on your paper or canvas showing where you want to place your still life. Returning to our example of an orange I begin to block in a dark mass of colour which I indicate in a brown ochre such as raw umber with a touch of white. This will be my background colour or ground. In my example I have selected a grey brown piece of cloth that the orange sits on.

At this point I am not too concerned with the final colour and shape of the fabric. I just need to knock out the light of the canvas. I now look at the orange and decide to mix a little white with my raw umber I have on my palette and begin to rough in the size I want for my orange. I now step back and look to see if the fabric should be darker or lighter in relation to the orange. As well as light and dark there is also warm and cool to think of and this relates mainly in terms of colours. As I have selected a cool colour in raw umber already I have a reasonable midtone for my fabric. The orange is a warmer object and so adding some white into some raw umber pushes the painting of the orange forward.

Continue to follow this approach of checking the dark and light of object and surrounding area in the above example of the orange on brown fabric. I now give myself a break and let the painting dry.

When you return to the painting for the second session it is easier to see if lights and dark need to be adjusted. Continue this process until you have established a working under painting that shows the main shapes. Once you are happy with the overall design then carefully look at laying thin layers of colour over the initial masses. You will be amazed at how a step by step process will establish a believable interpretation of what`s in front of you. As your confidence and feel of the subject increases you can move into painting colour directly but I recommend painting in tonal masses before laying and colour and detail. You will find your painting becomes more 3D and alive.

The above is an introduction and not exhaustive but you will progress well if you work from life. I suggest a still life set up of fruit or vegetables to start with if you are a little new to painting from life as its easier to arrange. I should also add I generally always work from a toned paper or canvas as working from white is hard to establish the lights and dark areas. Still life painting is a great genre in itself and their have been some amazing painters such as Velazquez, Zurburan, Cezanne who really achieved wonderful things.

Hope you enjoyed this introduction to Life Painting.