Project 2281: New Acrylic Nude of Juan Pablo

For the bedspread, I left the wash visible and added the stripes over it, which created an effect I really liked. The hardest part of the painting was getting the lighting right, since all the light comes from one direction. The body was also a challenge because I blocked it in very roughly at first and then had to rework it to get it where I wanted. Overall, though, the painting came together pretty smoothly.

I start with a medium-dark flesh tone as the base for the body. From there I build the darker and lighter areas on top of it—it’s simply one approach to establishing the lights and shadows. At one point the video gets darker because I was painting the doors with very dark colors, and the lamps were creating glare, so I turned them off briefly to see the painting more clearly and then turned them back on afterward.

I chose this photograph because Juan Pablo is my newest model, and it’s always more exciting to work from the newest photographs. I made a rough sketch of this image and it had a great energy, so I thought I would try it as a painting. Sometimes I paint in a more realistic style, but the sketch suggested a more expressionist approach, which is the reason for the outlines.