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The Letter: Step 10

The Letter

The last major area of the painting to be finished was the concrete and block wall to the figure’s left.  Of major concern here is the lighting.  The figure is fairly brightly lit form two directions with the strongest source being the sunlight from the right and slightly lesser, reflected light from the left, presumably from a mirror-like glass wall behind her.  The effect is most pronounced on her legs where the back lighting is actually brighter.  It was a little disconcerting to paint and looked unnatural, at least while the left side of the painting was incomplete.  Part of the purpose for the decorative blocks was to allow a raised surface that would also be lit by the reflected light and give some visual confirmation that the lighting on the legs was correct.  It worked rather well.  Once the wall was finished, the lighting on the legs and back of the shoulders felt much more natural.

Before calling the painting done, there were a number of small touch-ups to be taken care of.  Mostly these concerned small adjustments: brightening highlights, sharpening or softening edges, cleaning up a little around the areas where the skirt had been twice wiped off, etc.  I also changed the colored stripes on the large antenna in the foreground which, over the course of the painting, had increasingly reminded me of a ten-storey candy-cane.  The final detail was the signature.

After working for so long on a single project, it is always a little hard to really accept it as finished.  Force of habit, maybe, or the fact that I could tweak and modify small details of a piece this large almost indefinitely.  It is also very gratifying to see how it all came together, especially once I am able to stop focusing on all the little details and just look at the whole picture.  In this case it took a week or two get to that point, but now I can say I think it turned out beautifully.

Thanks for joining me in the Studio.  As always, I would be happy to answer any questions or respond to any comments about this painting or any other art-related topic.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 6:37 am and is filed under The Letter. 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.

One Response to “The Letter: Step 10”

  1. Amy Says:
    October 9th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

    I love how you depict the emotion of the characters in your paintings! The emotional depth in the young lady here is just amazing. I relate to her. It’s surreal, how much she is me and I am her. Fascinating progression from sketch to final piece. You are talented, passionate, perfect!

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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."