A View Of The Studio

Or why I need a proper one.

Pretty cramped. The window is south facing, so provides quite variable light - especially at this time of year. Also, since the sun is so low it shines straight onto the screen.

As it is a room in my flat, I don't feel comfortable inviting models here. Once I did but the light was so bad my reference photographs were next to useless. Also, there is no room to arrange any kind of tableau - not even a blank wall for the model to stand against!

Never mind, something will come up eventually, and I will be able to put all these things I'm planning into action - not least, working from a model more often.

However, I will continue to work mainly from digital photographs for a while yet. My process is a changing thing but I work better if a painting is done in stages over days or even weeks, with me pondering problems as I go along. Having someone else there makes me bashful and less likely to go hang it, lets just paint over all that lovely bit of painting to try something else. Also, most of my paintings get to a stage where I stop looking at the reference material and just make it up. This is much much harder to do with a person in front of you.

The photo's I use are all taken by me and often manipulated before being used. They need to able to blown right up - part of painting has to be selection, which means there has to be enough information to choose from. Sketches (both drawn and painted) are also useful - and I have not yet attempted to paint someone that I have not painted from life in oils at some stage.

Also you can photograph what would be difficult or impossible to paint - smiles, certain postures and expressions, the view from the eleventh floor of a library . . .