The figure + the body with Neil Wedman
He is the only teacher that wears a three pieces suit and I wanted to take a class with him since I saw him walking down the corridor at Emily Carr University of Art + Desing. Finally, I was able to register to ‘The Figure + the Body’, a class with Mr Wedman. I find painting with a live model so challenging. It’s a love and hate relationship with the paint and time. With only few minutes to define the main lines of the model's body, the result is sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But there are always moments on the canvas that are so beautiful and promising. "Good start Marion" Mr Wedman would wispered while walking behind me.. and sometimes it was more like "You have to step away from the painting and look at it". Mr Wedman's love of painting is very contagious and his positive energy a great motivation to keep on trying!
In the end, I don't think it was a complete success, but I do enjoy some of the moments present in each painting. I love the freshness of the quick 5 minutes ones. So little is revealed and yet, you can feel the model's presence.
I have shared with you some of my favorites. They are monochromatic, mostly black and white with some colored background. Starting with 5 minutes poses, 10 minutes all the way to 45 min for the longest poses.
For the final, we had to produced two portraits. The first, a regular portrait and the second, the same model but disguised. I worked with a live model for the first 45 minutes and then finished the paintings with the help of photographs.
To view the result of my final paintings, click on these links:
