Quent Cordair Fine Art

This painting is officially finished. The approach I took when painting the arms and hands was even more useful while working on the feet. The slight simplification of the wrinkles in the arches and the careful, directional control of the brushwork combined to make the feet look like feet, but still feel soft and feminine. I found myself doing a lot more paint mixing right on the canvas than usual as I fine-tuned the colors, and I think that really helped as well. There is an amazing variation of color in the soles of feet (and, to a lesser extent, the palms of the hands) that isn’t present elsewhere on the figure, mainly because the skin there is so different. It changes thickness substantially from the pads of the feet to the arches, for example, and since skin is quite translucent, the thickness affects the color. Ignoring these subtle changes in color leaves the feet looking more like those of a manikin than a living person. (Exaggerating the same subtleties in the face can easily make a figure look flushed. It’s a delicate balance that I am still working on.)

Having finished the feet, I also get to see the result of the careful work on the sheets. It is easier now to see that the shape of the major folds in the sheet is completely dependent on the way the knees and feet of the figure press into the mattress. Since everything matches up, the bed looks soft and weight of the figure is palpable. This is the stuff you really can’t make up.

Final touch-up work on this piece consisted mostly of adding more white to the brightest areas, and some repainting of a very small section of the skirt (luckily the skirt and luckily on the shadow side) where Asher managed to contribute a brushstroke of his own. Never underestimate the height of a determined 2-year-old.

So, for the final assessment, I am really happy with this painting. I think the extra time spent working on simpler figure paintings over the past year has been really good for my technique, especially with skin tones and textures, but also with overall consistency. Having finished this piece I am really excited to move on to some more ambitious compositions.

I am told people are still visiting the studio, so I hope it has been somewhat entertaining and informative. As always I welcome any questions or comments. Thanks for reading.

It is interesting what a difference it makes having the arms painted. It gives a more finished look to everything else, and allows the first real assessment of how well the composition is working. I am pleased to see that the re-arrangement of the clouds is indeed providing enough contrast to allow the shirt to stand out in the foreground, and to a greater extent, the contrast between the shirt and the nearest arm is really pushing the arm forward. The color scheme also feels more complete with the warm flesh tones offsetting the cool whites and blues of the background.

Aside from the visual effect on the painting as a whole, there is another point of interest, at least for me, in the way the arms are painted. With each of the other elements in this piece, from the clouds to the sheets and clothing to the hair, I have been more selective than ever before with the detail level and the surface quality of the paint. This is a trend that really began with the dress in By the Fountain. I found that by using more paint and blending with a small round brush, I could create a very soft texture that wasn’t so smooth as to feel plastic. In combination with intentionally leaving out smaller details that don’t have specifically to do with the larger forms, the effect is a more consistent, clean feel to the painting. I have used this approach to some extent with flesh since then, but this time I made an effort to keep the detail level in the hands on exactly the same level as the surrounding elements. I also kept some of the same texture to the paint, though I was more careful to control the direction of the final brush strokes, and I think it has a much more skin-like feel because of it. More importantly, I think the different pieces of the painting are better integrated in this piece than in previous paintings.

Even though painting the clothing involves the very same technique as did the bedding (the shirt is even the exact same colors), it is a lot more interesting to paint. Certainly there is a degree to which the wrinkles in the sheets have to be accurately painted in order to give the illusion of the shape of the bed, the impression of the weight of the figure, the softness of the cloth etc, but there is a surprising amount of wiggle room, especially in areas like the upper right where the drapery is more randomly bunched up. With the clothing there is considerably less room for error. There is the familiar form of the figure giving rise to the overall pattern of folds in the cloth, and if that general form isn’t kept in mind while painting the folds and wrinkles, it really shows in the final painting. I remember reading a comment made by one of my favorite figure painters, Bouguereau, that the most critical skill an artist can possess is the ability to see both the general and the specific at once. This is a great example of what he meant. Attention has to be given to the details in order to paint the cloth convincingly, but those details don’t add up to much if they aren’t painted in their proper place and scale within the larger form of the figure. So, while the process is the same whether painting sheets or shirts, it is far more gratifying to see the shirt start to take shape.

You may have also noticed that not only is the drapery complete, but the hair has been painted as well. The combination of the model’s dark hair color and the nature of the lighting left almost nothing to paint as far as detail in the hair. It was quick enough work that I painted the bulk of it at the same time as I was working on the skirt. The upshot of all this is that now I can turn my attention to the really fun stuff: the arms, hands and feet.

I am all but finished with the bedding. There is a small section of gold throw that I threw in to add a little color to the otherwise nearly monochromatic room. This sort of work can be a little tedious. It is nowhere as interesting as painting a figure or even a building, but it takes just as long. Even so, it is still quite rewarding to see the end results, and there are plenty of books available on CD to pass the time.

In this image I am just getting started with the interior background. The wall is meant to appear somewhat like a cross between concrete and synthetic stone. I love the concrete, but it would be a bit heavy to use this high up in a building. It also doesn’t flex as much as you would like in a structure that will have to sway slightly in the wind. (These are really non-essential details, but you would be surprised what sort of Bob Ross-like internal dialogue goes on in your head during the several hours you work on a little piece of wall like this one). The bed clothing is straight forward drapery painting, much simpler than clothing as there is no figure underneath. The blue and white should keep some continuity between the bed and the clouds outside.