OZONE -The final sketch

OZONE - colour

Two days late but I have managed to finalize my idea despite a week of distractions, obligations and flu. I went with this pose and decided to give her a bottle of sun lotion, probably factor 5000!

I scanned this drawing from my sketch book and opened it in Photoshop on my laptop, roughly adding and playing with colours until I was satisfied. Doing this can sometimes save a lot of time and effort and is very convenient as it allows me to rehearse, plan, play and try out many possibilities and variations without having to re-draw the whole image again and again.

This is pretty much the blueprint for the painting including the colour scheme. During the process of painting I'll continue to develop little details as I go along, making any adjustments I think necessary.

OZONE - final sketch

Sketches & considerations

Through the distractions of daily living and what not,  the idea for my "Ozone" painting is taking shape.

I have been playing with poses and angles for the main figure. This usually drives me a bit mad as there can be so many alternatives and there's a tendency to over think things (at least for me anyway) and I get rather impatient. I find that usually my first imagining of the image is best but there are exceptions. It just has to feel right to me.

These are some of the considerations I have been exploring. I want something simple but also dynamic maybe, so I'm also playing with low angle views, adding perspective to the figure and drawing attention towards the sky. However, I also like the simple straight forward eye level view...

Defining an idea for a painting

Having recently discovered becoming unwittingly quite good at procrastination, I feel the need to relinquish this tendency and hang it up to dry and watch it shrivel up.

What better way to do this than by trying to finish developing an idea I had for a painting over a month ago. An old yellow post-it note was the medium for the quick expression of this sudden flash of inspiration of mine, an idea of something that I believe has potential.

Alas this is where it all ends, a yellow piece of paper with instructions in blue ball point pen to what could be a really cool painting.

So through this blog I give myself a week in order to define this imagery and concept.

The idea? "OZONE" A tongue in cheek view of the ever disappearing ozone layer and its effects, sun tans, skin cancer and sun worshiping beach babes.

A woman in a bikini stands with hands on hips looking towards a sky with meteorites or debris falling from the sky. Her head and shoulders are literally on fire, flames surrounding her head like a match. Almost a satire of sun lotion ads etc.

And so I begin...