The paintings I have done in the past few years take me a long time. Like weeks and months. I find myself working with a single hair going into crazy detail, even when I have told myself to “keep it loose”.
I am challenging myself to whip out a few paintings... that I am still proud of, that take days instead of weeks or months.
Yesterday I started another tennis painting (just a little 16x20). To work fast I broke it all into shapes and painted all of the big colors in- instead of painting in my darks first I painted all of the shapes with the color that they were mostly.
See pic below
Today, I am getting into adding the brights and darks and cleaning up edges.
See pic below
I still have the tennis net and a lot of tightening up to do, but I think I can crank it out in one more sitting.
Long story short: I am trying loosen up a bit. So I’m breaking things into shapes, painting them the color they are mostly, and refining from there. (Rather than layering dark to light and having it take far longer). *** note- still layer dark to light on hair or else it will look fake.