A work in progress...painting from a gesture drawing

The other day I started preparing some masonite boards to paint on. I had an Idea in mind, based on a phtoto of an actress, but it wasn't quite working when I started to paint.

So yesterday when I was in the studio, I glazed over the bad beginning with black and gold. Then I dug thru the (very large because I never throw anything away) pile of gesture drawings that I have done and looked for one that would work on this size board.

I loved this drawing of Katie - it was about a 5 minute pose, and the tilt of her head, the wisp of hair falling forward, the angle of the knee and the gently turned-inward foot, the profile of her breasts were really subtle and beautiful. I am often attracted to poses where the figure is "enclosed" in a way.

Here is where I am at with the painting. I'm trying to find the right balance of finish/immediacy that I had in the gesture drawing...also making my line quality as interesting as possible. And there's always the challenge of making the figure and environment work together.

And of course, my Jack was also hard at work. He went thru a whole pile of scrap mat board that he painted on, so I let him paint on my other big sheet of masonite. Who knows? Maybe that'll turn into a great collaboration in the future.