First year final piece! Leazes Park II

The piece I will be exhibiting in the end of First Year show is an enormous painting I did on a piece of wood I saved from a skip! Originally around 200cm x 180cm, I decided I wanted the piece square, which did cause issues - due to the fact the wood had previously been nailed together, I had to hand cut it with a jigsaw, so the line ended up slightly scruffy and splintered. The wood was also incredibly heavy, but the grain of it gave a lovely texture to the painting, and complemented the subject matter of trees perfectly.

The square is 180cm x 180cm. I primed it and drew the underlying drawing in charcoal. U can see the wood I needed to saw off on the right hand side (also gives you an idea of the texture).

I used a very turps-ed down mix of oil paint to provide a ground for the painting

studio space

me working on my piece with George's piece of feet in front - studio

I deliberately made some areas more blocked in and graphic, juxtaposed with more washy, blended areas. I think this successfully added depth to the painting so it did not look too 2D and you could travel through the layers of the painting. 

the final product - I had to change the orientation as the jaggedy edge from where I had sawn was better disguised when it was at the bottom of the piece. The line on the left is poly-filler - wood can be in terrible states when salvaged from the skip!!

The piece was too heavy to hang from the wall in the exhibition, but it looked like it had been forgotten about just resting on the floor - thankfully the venue had these wooden plinths to raise it off the ground

commissioned painting 'Joyous Nude'

I was recently commissioned to do a painting with the words 'Joyous Nude' in mind. I made the canvas stretcher in the wood workshop and stretched the canvas myself. I used my sister as a model which is why I have blurred out my reference photo    
                                     

I often hold my painting up to look at it through a mirror. This can give me the illusion of fresh eyes; seeing it from a different perspective to see what can be done to improve it