Thursday, January 15, 2015

Jan 15, Searching Deeper

In keeping with my metaphoric search of self, my otters are gaining more poetic titles...  I think, anyway.
This one is a smaller version of the larger one I've been fighting with for a week now.  I finally figured that I've got the composition off and I need to rework the large piece, as in gesso over the darn thing and start again.  I was working from two photos of the same otter, and it just doesn't work for me to do that.  I couldn't get the anatomy to agree.  So in frustration I started out on a much smaller panel to see if I could sketch the otter better.  I love those long lines and curves and sweeping movements of the body flowing through the water and the big version was skewed in a way that it wasn't fun to look at. I printed out my photo and did a simple grid and gridded my panel as well, and was able to get the composition to feel much more rhythmic.  PLUS I didn't have any surface water appearing in the first version-  notice the top right area in the smaller piece...
Now I much prefer the smaller version over the larger, and will be redoing the big one.
Whew!
11x14 acrylic on panel, click HERE for purchase info- $315 unframed

This is the larger version... terrible photo but you get the idea of the composition. Crazy, ay?

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