Figure Sketch

I wanted to show you all this. A nice drawing, not the best thing I've ever done, but decent. And not even finished. I was adding some color to it just to spruce it up and I spilled the paint on the piece. I was so mad at myself for doing that. I just wanted to share with everyone, even if you have talent it still takes a lot to have a piece reach the point of finished. I don't know how many times I have smudged something, ripped paper, dropped a pen on a art piece, scratched paint of a finished painting. Some of it you can go back in and work out, and some of it you just can't. This being the later.

I have done a few works like this, but to me it's just practice. Something about figures, it's hard for me to take the figure and do something with it to make it a more in depth piece, rather than just a drawing of a person. I have this idea of taking the figures, in similar poses to this one and having them melt into the four elements. (Kinda along this organic / nature / environment theme.) I tend to have lots of ideas like that but when I get to creating the piece the people just look cheesy. I think it's because in my head they are almost in motion, I see the figures from many different angles. The images in my head, even though they are ideas for 2-d work are almost three dimensional when I visualize them. Maybe it's better to describe it this way: all the different components of the painting: the background, foreground, specific objects or textures get re-arranged as I play with what the layout would be. I also tend to imagine myself working on the piece so I see it from different angles as I imagine myself working close-up and then stepping back.

The sketch is done with graphite and gouache on paper. To be honest, I was getting carried away with the paint, I watered it down a little too much (instead of adding white to lighten it), and the water made the paper all wrinkly.