Modigliani has been invading my thoughts and canvas this month. He is the inspiration gifted to me by Priti Lisa in our Magical Journal Journey.
His is such a tragic tale, of illness, addictions, death and broken-hearted suicides. He sold few paintings in his lifetime and was once again only really valued after we had lost him. So tragic to think that his TB could have been cured just years later.
Would his output have suffered though had he been in the fullness of health and free of addiction? Did he have to be tortured to be a genius. I hope not. I will admit to having a few oddments of eccentricity in my own creative basket, but would not want to be standing on a precipice to create my masterpieces.
As always I must thank the Master whose lessons I lapped up this month. Modigliani taught me a refreshing simplicity in portraiture. Painting in his style felt almost like taking aim with a camera. I snapped and captured in a moment a fleeting expression. I don't even know if that is what he intended his portraits to be, but it doesn't really matter. We all take our own lessons.
The nude at the top of the post was quite a departure for me. I rarely stray further down than the neck when it comes to figurative drawing. I thought I would be brave and daring and experimented with a number of sketches before settling on this pose.
I love how these projects push us from our comfort zones and surprise us when we discover that drawing a nude figure isn't quite as tricky as I thought it would be - especially when you're borrowing the loose style of Mr M (I shall call him that from now on as it's too hard to get the spelling right!).
Mr M met my style in this next piece.
I had intended to take it further, but once this layer had dried I rather fell in love with the simplicity so decided to let her be. I wonder what or who she is looking at...
It was hard to force myself to keep the features flatter than I normally would and I know I put far too much detail in this lady's eyes. I painted them too big and I don't think there's enough angle in the nose. We can be so critical once a piece of work has gone in the post!
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