progress of painting

progress of painting...

So I thought I'd make this blog about the progress of my main painting of the three bodies (two females and 1 male). While painting this it looked a little odd with the male bodies on the end panel as he had a darker skin tone to the middle panel. I tried putting the male panel in the middle - which really did not work out as I had planned as the other two bodies fit better with each other. 

below is a comparison of slightly different skin tones between the two females in order to balance the color palette. prefer the two female forms to be together as they fit into each other and morphe nicely at the hip. becomes as though they are moving.

Below is the skin tone comparison of the male and the middle female panel - fits quite nicely being point at the arm and slightly at the hip.

So I then thought maybe to balance the bodies out to make the middle twisted form a slightly darker skin tone - more of a tan color. To even out and balance the bodies so it doesn't look slightly unbalanced.

Overall they now fit into each other but I have found out through the use of posting them on my social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that the genital area very much draws further attention of the eye. Rather than attending to the whole bodies as one.

so how can I avoid all this attention to the genitals? 

I thought maybe adding the background may draw the attention to a whole...

I tested out the backgrounds first with photoshop to see if a lighter contrast compared to a darker contrast would work. I found out the darker background popped out the bodies more whereas the lighter background made the bodies fade into the background more. I thought it would have to be a darker background to pop out the bodies and the eye is slightly diverted from the genitals but I still have this problem 

Then I played around with photoshop as I finally found my Wacom tablet... so I decided to do a few practice pieces with a different female and a different male pose/image that I photographed before the lockdown. These are the results - I purposely made them illustrative to give a different feel to the drawings.

The results of these by posting them on my socials were very good - the feedback was more positive than the paintings as they were drawn the whole bodies and felt as though they were moving. 

The genitals were less focused on as there is so much going on with the drawing and the style of it.

To further think about what's going on with the drawings such as.. the stomach, the proportions, the drawing style, and the perspectives of the drawings. So then I thought maybe I can interpret this style to the paintings? to give the paintings that movement and focus of the whole of the bodies and not just drawn to the genital regions first.

This is the result of that...

I feel as though this was a very good outcome of this wee experiment and create a feeling of movement, texture and emphasizes the bodies from a flat platform. It gives the audience so much more to look for and focuses the attention on everything and not just one region. It also creates a mixed media platform - not just a painting and not just a digital drawing. combining them creates a balance between the painting and the bodies and the drawing.