MALE NUDE PAINTING: KHANH AT THE KITCHEN TABLE

October 14, 2013

New Painting: Khanh at the Kitchen Table

Several things came together for me in my newest painting, Khanh at the Kitchen Table. All the work I’ve been doing with the Faces series over the last several weeks has given me more confidence in my use of line and color. I also pushed myself, in this painting, to pay less attention to chiaroscuro (use of light and dark to define form) and more to flat areas and patterns of color. That wasn’t easy, but I did it, and I’m happy with the results.

Top, the source photo for the painting. Below it, the posterized version to give me ideas for color and pattern.

Above is a photograph of Khanh sitting at my kitchen table with a towel over his shoulders. This is the photograph I chose as the source image for this painting, and below it is the posterized version which helped me get color and color-pattern ideas.

I worked out the lines in a series of rough sketches; the one above is the final one. I liked the lines and patterns enough in this drawing to go ahead and transfer it to canvas. Below is the pencil drawing on canvas.

At this point, my usual procedure has been to dilute some black acrylic paint enough so that I can use a fairly fine brush to go over the pencil lines with black. But a few weeks ago, I ordered a black Montana acrylic marker to experiment with. I’m so glad I did. I love this marker, and in fact I’ve ordered other colors to experiment with as well. But for this stage of the painting, the acrylic marker is wonderful. Instead of having to laboriously paint all the lines, I can DRAW them with the marker! This is faster and a lot more fun, and makes it easier for me to keep the flow of the line I had in the pencil version. (I’m using the thick 16mm tip because I paint large, but you can get these acrylic markers in varying thicknesses. Here’s a link in case you’re interested: Montana Acrylic Markers on DickBlick.com.)

So now the painting was ready for the actual painting to begin. I thought I was ready to take the plunge, but something made me hesitate. I realized that if I didn’t think this out first, I would go ahead and automatically use my usual approach, which would not result in the flat color thing I was going for. So I got out my Wacom tablet and pen and did several digital versions on the computer. This gave me lots of chances to try out different color schemes and patterns.

Above you can see some of the color ideas I tried. Below is the version I liked the best.

Once I had the color scheme figured out, it was just a matter of mixing the colors and laying them in. Some paintings are all about the adventure, and you go in knowing you don’t know the path, there will be obstructions and washed-out bridges and the possibility of disaster, but that’s necessary to get where you want to go. This one wasn’t like that. I knew what I wanted and I followed the program. So it was several hours of just filling in the colors, kind of like a very big coloring-book page. Sometimes this is a nice way to paint. It’s relaxing. I can’t do this too often because it gets boring, but sometimes when you’re in between big adventures and big breakthroughs, you do a painting like this to consolidate some of what you’ve been learning during the more difficult phases of discovery.

Not that there weren’t some challenging parts of this coloring-book page, but nothing that fazed me too much. In the end, painting it was satisfying and enjoyable. What’s even better is that, despite the calm and straightforward nature of the process, the finished painting has life and vitality and a real presence.

Here’s the finished painting: Khanh at the Kitchen Table.

Update: Now there’s a Khanh E-book!

In February 2014 I published an e-book called Khanh which contains over 100 uncensored photographs from both of my photo shoots with this beautiful model. You can purchase it for instant download here. It’s also available on CD. Look for shots of Khanh also in my e-book The Asian Male Nude Book Two.