Purple Bike

Today's Painting 1 class had a colorful set-up. Frank had set up what looked like a white and orange hang glider's parachute up on the wall and borrowed a classmate's bike, which he placed on a red pillow on top of a stool. The model, not pictured, stuck her limbs outside the wholes in the parachute. Bizarre, but amazing!

Below are photographs of the set up, which I had an awkward view of and thus decided to merge my two views to make one colorful dynamic composition.

Set Up 1

Set Up 2

This class was also the first class I was able to get my hands on pre-gessoed unstretched canvas on a roll. My professor had been urging me to "draw big" and so I did. This piece is as wide as my wingspan (and equally as tall). I feel so much freer working large. I have put aside my worries about not finishing every bit (this one is still unfinished btw) and have embraced the motion of painting on a large scale. Instead of the motion coming form my wrist as I hunch over a canvas, my entire arm moves from my shoulder, my legs move and as Frank would describe it "I dance".

Below I took a series of pictures of the painting in progress. I wish I had taken a picture of the under painting only (here in purple acrylic).

Bike, step 1
Laying down color blocks

Bike, step 2
Adding details and blue to background

Bike, Step 3
Brighten pillow and forground
oil painting (4'x4')

I'd like to brighten up the blue in the background while keeping the transparency it currently has. I also will add spokes and make the orange fabric in the foreground feel like fabric. I'm playing with the idea of converting the squares of blue and orange into horizontal stripes (or changing the orange stripe on the bottom left into rectangular segments). I hope to get back to this on Tuesday once it has time to dry.