Process

The way I went about creating this project was by first searching the Internet on ballet company websites, dance wear sites, Facebook, and Google-ing specific dance companies for images that are visually interesting.  Any image could be used if people are trying this our on their own.  For example, models, animals or athletes could be used to create paintings like these, just to name a few examples of other subjects.  When I found three images of dancers that I liked, and that worked well together, I used a copier to enlarge the pictures to make stencils that would fill the canvas space better.  After this, I traced around each stencil, onto the canvas, and drew on the vertical and horizontal lines that I have to juxtapose the dancers.  I have the very geometric lines bordering the dancers because the dancers are in positions that are neither geometric nor symmetrical.  The addition of the geometric lines along with juxtaposing the organic form of the dancers, they add to the movement of the piece by making the viewer's eye move across the canvas.  Starting with my darkest grey, I painted the entire form of the figures.  Next, I used the mid-tone and then the lightest tone of grey to form all of the shadows.  Upon getting to this step in the process of painting, I decided that the Tri-tone color scheme, which I had used in the original piece that I used as inspiration for these three new pieces (the painting in green), was not working out as well as I had hoped.  I decided to paint the areas around the dark, medium, and light tones with intermediate tones of grey to help add dimension and shape to the dancers.  This is the point I am at now.  There are still some touch ups that can be done, but in the time frame for this project, this is all i have time for.  If there are any suggestions of where I should improve the paintings I would greatly appreciate that.  I would like to collaborate with other artists through the Internet to continue and grow as an artist.


-Steven