"Reflections" 11x14 acrylic on canvas panel.
I'm in this painting group on Fridays--affectionately known as "Hell's Easels"-- and run by Austin artist Eve Larson. The group features a clothed model in a long pose. This time our model brought in her vanity table from home and posed with it. She even had some perfume bottles to complete the picture (I ended up not painting the bottles, but they were really nice bottles).
From where I was standing, I couldn't see our model's reflection in the mirror; it was blank. I wanted to include a reflection of her, but do something different, so I put it looking back from the wrong direction. To balance the composition, I added a landscape with a river, and the river also has the model's profile.
I was very pleased with the colors from this painting. It's a limited palette: cadmium red light, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow light, ultramarine blue, black, and white. I used a lot of dry brush and the painting has a similar look to a pastel painting.
To photograph this painting, I used a flat bed scanner. I scanned the painting in 2 halves, and put the 2 halves together in photoshop. I had to adjust the colors on the 2 halves, using levels, to match them perfectly. There was still a seam, so I blended it using the blur tool, and textured over it to match the canvas texture. Even though this may seem like a lot of work, scanning a painting gives great results, so I'm happy with it.
