"Woman 01" and "Woman 02" Painting Process (Part 1)

In summer 2021 I began to work on my "Female Figure" series. The goal was to experiment with a bigger painting format and also to deepen my pictural knowledge of the female figure since this wasn´t my strong point before.

I was always struggling with how to get the drawing of the female body correctly, the rhythm of the body, the proportion, characteristics that distinguish the female body from the male body... In regards to big painting format, they weren´t really my favorite surface to paint on, since you have to work on big surfaces with bigger brushes as normal. Your observation also needs to be sensitive enough to view every element in the composition as a whole. Moreover, when you work on big paintings, it also requires more effort in order to correct your composition and structure in comparison to a small-sized canvas. My style of studying and executing a painting normally involves a lot of correction and radical changes on the surface, therefore it is generally more comfortable for me to work on small-sized paintings. But I thought it was time to challenge and improve myself.

With that in mind, I worked intensively on 2 big canvases for over 2 months. They are : 170cm x 125cm and 175cm x 130cm in size. Here you can see some different stages of the paintings and my experiences executing them:

Woman 01:

28/09/2021: This was the first version of the painting, which showed some potential in the way the female body was painted. However, the body characteristic didn´t quite match her head. The head also seems to be a little bit too far to the right.

I then used paint rest to destroy the figure and open up the drawing.

30/09/2021: I reshaped the figure in another direction.

1/10/2021: Tried to make every element clearer.

4/10/2021: Another direction...

9/10/2021: At this point, I also did a lot of studies with a live model with the hope of improving the drawing of the female body. You can view the studies here.