26 October 2007

siena

Winsor & Newton CP 300 gsm, 30" x 22". about 15 hours.

this is a painting i used to test drive the primatek paints. the paper is rather light for the amount of water used, but was resilient and had a good tooth, which gripped the thick paints and provided an all over stucco like texture. this brought out the fresco quality of these granulating pigments and also the muted color gamut.

siena modeled again today. i enjoy working with her because she can become many different female images. here she has on her gamine face, and her unruly hair made for a great textural challenge. i left the rendering coarse, again in fresco style. the primatek palette has a rather limited range of warm colors, so it was a struggle to keep the reds within an acceptable flesh tone.

i discovered siena's face fit into an intricate faceted division of the format rectangle, which i used instead of a square grid to copy the photograph. it imparts a gemlike symmetry to the casual and relaxed pose.

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