Alla Prima Figure in Oils From a Live Model - Video

The Schuler School of Fine Arts has an open figure painting session most weeks. Here is one of the many oil sketches directly from the live model during one of these sessions (Jan 27, 2024). I start abstractly, going for a quick gesture. After breaking down the drawing down into shapes of darks and light within a more articulated contour, I delve into exaggerated mid-tones of the light (around the shadow shapes). Next the story of the light is explained with 5 values. Adding highlights to the light midtones and reflected lights and cast shadows to the flat shadow shapes creates a direction, intensity and color of the light. I make small adjustments until the shapes work. This happened fairly early in this painting allowing me to refine the face, hands and feet. Afterwards, I had the rest of the session to soften edges and further refine details. In the 3-hour session, I had to work fast. The system allows me to concentrate on the early, simple shapes when shifting the drawing and major forms is simple.

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