Friday, July 30, 2010

Work in progress

"Enigma"
70 x 78 cm
Oil on linen canvas, 2010

That was fun! Its finally finished. :D

I felt that I needed a brake, so I was off to do some
plein air painting in the nearby forest with my friend.
Hopefully I finish the background soon, maybe even today. :)

Stage5:
I am not out of the woods yet, but I am glad to see the overall figure taking its form :D

Stage4:
I feel that the hands are equally important as the face to communicate the idea to the viewer.
Still a lot of work to be done. Final size of the painting will be about 75 x 80 cm.

Stage3:
I am still andvancing really slow with this. Tendancy to just splash the paint around randomly to see the whole is huge, I do try to resist the impulse because it would be of course unwise to do mindless strokes. And its also fun to mix a new color for every stroke.

Stage2:
I am slowly working down the head and try to keep the overall composition and the value structure intact. These skin tones will not be the lightest ones in the painting.
Plenty of glare in the photo, but I hope you dont mind. :D



I just started this new studio painting. This painting requires very delicate brushwork because of the subject matter and i am really slowly building up the forms. I have allready spent like 4 hours to get it at this stage. No rush.. :)

12 comments:

jesusest@gmail.com said...

This is great, hei is coming nice.Cheers

Antti Rautiola said...

Thanks Jesus. :D
Still some glare in the painting..

Sneyder C. said...

Me encanta la pintura es genial...aun estando sin terminar.

Saludos

jesusest@gmail.com said...

Good work on the hands.

Arti said...

Your talent is umatched!Glad I visited you.This portrait sure is going to be wonderful...

Erik van Elven said...

Good work on the hands indeed. And I really like the green undertone you put into the skin, it gives a lot of life.

Antti Rautiola said...

Thank you very much for the support everyone! :D

Susan Liles said...

Great painting! Thanks for the stages of progress of the painting.

Antti Rautiola said...

Thank you Susan, pleasure was all mine.

Marilyn Flanegan said...

This is my first visit to your blog and I so enjoyed seeing the different stages of this exceptional painting.

shirley fachilla said...

From your work, I would never have guessed your process. It's done so thoughtfully and is so finished in area before moving on to the next.
A very tender and expressive painting.

Antti Rautiola said...

Thanks guys!

Shirley:
It is actually easier, for me, to judge the strokes when i tackle only a small portion of the painting at a time.
I almost always choose the easy too see parts first. Such as clear geometrical shape or an area with an high contrast. Using a face here for a starting point gives me correct perspective, scale and values for the rest of the painting. Rest of the strokes in the painting are judged against this. :)