Once again I tried to change things up a little. I used a heavy stock brown paper 11×14 inches landscape oriented.

Throughout my oeuvre I had done paintings of close up of body parts. The challenge of this to varying degree is that if one does a super close up of an arm or belly without the outline of limbs/silhouette, it’s not necessarily easy to know what as a viewer, one is seeing.

Without visual guidelines, it’s tougher to show volume & mass of a body. This is one of the challenges I enjoy. If I can make the viewer feel the curve of a part without showing the edge, then it’s “easy” when doing an entire body or section.

Another aspect of this which I enjoy is that even when really nailing the volume and mass effect of the skin, there’s a sort of abstract property to the piece. I like the concept of a viewer enjoying these types of works just for the colors and effects rather than the “Does it look like this person?” aspect which can occasionally be a distraction. This piece is not as tight a zoom as I sometimes do for this type of work.

Another Song About a Girl 11×14 Brown Paper & watercolor