Painting – Colorful people (acrylic)

I began painting this set in 2014, and now in 2016 I’ve finally made enough progress to do this write-up. While the set is still a work-in-progress I think it’s good to look back at how it was started and get an idea of what the next paintings will look like. The concept began as a simple sketch,  I then gradually incorporated different ideas and variations to the original concept.  Here are the two paintings that are currently completed. Each is on 12″x16″ canvas.

But first lets look at how this set began. As usual, all of my paintings begin with a simple sketch. After drawing the first two sketches I knew I wanted to make this a series of three or four.

I begin each painting by making light lines onto the canvas. The layout is very important in any artwork I create, my main focus is usually how the lines will draw the viewer’s attention.

After lightly sketching the design over the canvas I then proceed to make darker lines with paint. This is still gives me a chance to make changes if I see the overall layout will not work.

From the start I wanted to make at least three paintings so I began drawing the lines on all three canvases. I then began to focus on the first painting I wanted to complete.

After many coats of paint, and small additions to the painting I finally completed the first one of the set. I really liked the small details and the colors that stood out. The inspiration for the colors and patterns came from looking at paintings and textile examples from South America. This painting is currently hanging in my office.

I continued work on the next painting but I was not really happy with the results. On the next two photos you can see how I changed the colors of various panels and I also added various coats of paints for areas I knew I wanted to keep.

After spending time trying to come up a color combination I would be happy with I decided to just sketch the drawing again and color it using color pencils. This saved me a lot of time since I no longer needed to play around with colors on canvas.

Fast forward to 2016. I had been so busy with family I had almost no time for painting. I decided it was time to complete this set. I set up my art table and was committed to finishing at least one more painting.

After various small changes, but mostly following my color guide, I completed the next painting (on the left)

I’m very pleased with the results. It will fit nicely with the previous one I have completed. I’ve kept the same concept of the simple design but keeping interesting gradations, patterns and color combinations.

This is the last painting and currently a work in progress. I was not happy with the initial colors so I’m painting over it with more earth tone colors. I think it will still fit nicely with the other paintings once completed.

I hope you enjoyed the paintings and the process from start to finish. While these concepts are very simple, I think the fun part is coming up with ideas on layout, color combinations and patterns to use. The best part about painting these designs, is that if you make a mistake there’s a lot of room for do-overs. Till next time.