Dancers

From stages, streets, clubs and movies, here are some dancers from my files:

Using Photographs

In order to paint the pictures I imagine, I need the ability to draw accurately from life.  It is true even when I use photographs for reference.  To illustrate:

While riding through a residential neighborhood in San Pedro on a quick trip to California, I spotted an outstanding motif - two Spanish-style houses on a hill with a view of the Pacific in the distance.  There was only time for a few snapshots.

No one point of view was satisfactory; the sketch I made later required me to synthesize the three.

Comparing the photos with the watercolor it is obvious that many changes had to be made:  adjustments of walls and garages, exaggeration of the steepness of the hill, a drastic change in the direction of the light, omission of cars and trash cans, addition of clouds and trees.

At this point I had made one of the most common mistakes in art: I had put two pictures into one rectangle.  The house and garage on the left was one picture, the house and garage on the right was another.  It isn't always so easy to fix; this time I just shoved them together.

Two more steps in the development:

The wall and steps on the left seemed too stretched out; the redrawing is showing in the above version.

This is where it stands today, after 14 days of work:

 

Details Continued

Pierre Bonnard often painted complex still lifes which included a figure.  This example illustrates how he treats the features of the woman in the picture with less detail than the apples or the pattern on her shawl.

Rembrandt did the opposite in this portrait.  The garment of the sitter is nothing more than a flat, out-of-focus shape of black, and the interior is suggested only by a few broad strokes.

This close-up shows the care he reserved for the face.