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By the Fountain: Step 5

By the Fountain

Before I started in on the figure, the remainder of the background needed to be finished. I neglected to photograph the progress of the painting between steps, so that background work will be, unfortunately, overshadowed somewhat by the more interesting work on the figure.

I have been continuously emphasizing that this current series of paintings is intended to provide me with practice painting figures as much as anything else. With this painting I am really beginning to see tangible results. It isn’t that the finished product is necessarily any better than what has come before, but the ease with which it was painted was considerably greater from the mixing of the colors to the application of the final brush strokes. In fact, the process went so quickly that I ended up painting the face and hair in the same sitting.

I have written commentary on enough paintings here in the studio that I am beginning to feel a bit repetitive when it comes to describing the process involved in painting a figure. Rather than continue to do so, I will limit my commentary to theme and compositional comments, and a brief overview of what has changed since the last installment. I encourage anyone who would like further elaboration on any aspect of this painting to please write in to the studio. I will be happy to answer as fully as possible. Any other comments or questions are also welcome.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 21st, 2005 at 10:56 am and is filed under By the Fountain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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About Bryan Larsen ~

Bryan Larsen

"I was born on February 12, 1975, and have been drawing as long as I can remember. By the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be an artist, although at the time I didn't have a clear idea of how exactly I would use my talents to make a living.

"As I continued studying art, I began to suspect that fine visual art was dead. No one seemed interested in teaching students how to draw well, or paint well. More often than not, my own skills exceeded those of my instructors.

"The only field left that seemed to require good drawing, painting, and compositional skills was illustration, and therefore I began studying illustration at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. I became even more convinced that I had made the right decision in staying away from fine art as I endured course after course of required "drawing" and "painting" classes in which instructors required me to draw with "less focus", or use ridiculous materials such as shellac, glue, sand, salt, etc.

"My second year at Utah State, I met Damon Denys. In discussing Art with him I realized that there were other people who believed that technique and subject matter were indispensable components of any work of art. I then decided that I would work to develop my own painting skills with the purpose of creating artwork that I considered worthy of being called Fine Art.

"Since that time, I have studied on my own: Drawing from live models to learn the human form, studying proper painting techniques from any source I could find ample reason to trust, and developing a philosophy of Art based on reason, and life on earth.

"My goal is to portray the heroic and romantic in human nature and human achievement in a realistic style and a modern setting. I place particular emphasis on composition, technique, realistic detail, proper craftsmanship and consistency of style."