Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Van Gogh, Anonymous Nude, and Surrounding Air... and Lucian Freud

I started with this rather astonishing portrait of a woman by Van Gogh, from his stay in Paris in 1887:


and drew the outline of his nude onto a canvas, imagining the model away from her cramped Paris apartment, on holiday in a field of bright wildflowers in the Alps.  Still, the body itself dominated the canvas, without anyone else there, and so I added two nudes from my own notebooks for company:


But now the painting seemed far too busy! So, I began to work through the painting, blanking out the added nudes and experimenting with my "brushes" app, so as not to disturb the actual painting too much:


Interesting, okay ... Now, back to thinking about the air around the women. The Van Gogh woman is powerful, but I want the surroundings, and the second nude, to carry their weight too. So here is a new version, so far:


I am thinking I still need to add "air" to the circle around the left nude ... today ... Lucian Freud also said that "the main point about painting is paint: that it is all about paint."

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