Saturday 14 December 2013

Altarpiece - Almost There

I thought I would put these up to show how the image is developing.  On Friday morning I worked on the image in acrylics.


Yesterday evening I added more German faces, knocked back some of the distant figures and darkened the left foreground.  I developed all the faces a little more and then tried re-adjusting the tones of the big areas to make the snaking composition a little more obvious.


Today The halos need re-gilding and tidying.  Then I will work on the sky in oils - it would be almost impossible to achieve the highly blended 'Raphael sky' in acrylics.  I wanted the shell bursts to look something like those stylised tree-tops you see in many Renaissance paintings.

I feel that the image has now gained in subtlety but at the expense of impact - in other words the usual dilemma applies!  I think it will work well on a larger scale but choice and placing of the transfer images will be crucial. I also have to make and gild a much bigger carcass.

1 comment:

  1. Tim, this looks most intriguing! A lot of work but it should be stunning. I've planned my submission in my head and now need to work out how to achieve it! You are ahead of the game! Alix

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