Over the years when I’ve seen Old masters paintings I’ve always loved the way the artist has painted the fabric of the gowns and I thought I would paint something in that style for my latest painting. I had an idea for the painting, and a title for me to work to.. and knew I wanted two people in the painting, one a beautiful woman, and the other a man who was perhaps unaware of her as she stood behind him.
I knew that the obvious paint to do it in was acrylics, as I can get all the painting effects I wanted in it, and since I had the perfect frame for it, it would be on paper.
I drew out the image, and painted the blocks of colours first to seal the paper. Then I painted the background room, the hazy wall decorations on the left hand side, the faded red paint that had peeled from the wall, the brighter pale faded wall above the woman, and the dark brown of the wooden wall above the man, I thoroughly enjoyed painting the horizontal stone dado rail and the wooden slatted part below it. So quite a few strong verticals within the picture forming the room that the couple are in, giving it a feel of aged faded splendour as their backdrop.
I used the same colours within the painting, white, bright blue, dark turquoise, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, medium magenta for the pink tones of her face, there is no black in the painting at all, to make the dark tones that look like black I mixed ultramarine blue and burnt sienna together.
Then I painted the mans head, arm and hint of his rich yellow ochre and dark blue sleeve. I thoroughly enjoyed painting the gold ring on his finger, it says a bit about him although you can’t see his face.
Then I started painting the woman, starting with the rich fabric of her dress and the wispy blue fabric to her right. I wanted it to look like she was leaning on low windowsill behind the man. The fabric of her dress is full of folds and shows the opulence of her dress with the embroidered collar and insets of rich fabric in her sleeves. Then I painted the artificial flowers in her hair, the same turquoise blue of the wispy fabric to her right, and the background wall decoration to her left giving the painting harmony. Her rich auburn hair is piled up on top of her head and she has a gold slide holding it in place and that match her gold earrings and the gold decor on her forehead. When I had painted all of that, I then painted her face, and neck. I wanted her to have green eyes and bright red lipstick, and I wanted her to be looking at the viewer,as she passes her message across. She is leaning forward so that her hair gently touches his hair, but he is totally unaware of her….
I wanted him to be totally unaware of her, but I wanted her to show how much she loves him.. The painting is called ‘Unrequited love’.
Its painted in acrylics on paper, the size is 17.5 x 12.5 inches.. And I love it so much it is now hanging on my bedroom wall….
