In my prior post, I wrote about my preparation and start on this painting of a dancer. I have continued to build up orange and blue glazes in the background. I adjusted the head’s profile. I made the dress on the left side smaller to create one negative shape between the dress and the arm. Although I have not completed the background, I will start work on the figure. The relationship between shapes is important. If you place a light shape against a dark shape, the light shape will appear lighter and vice versa. This is one reason artists prefer to work up a painting as a whole. I need to work on the figure to better judge the background, particularly the values. The hues I selected were blue and orange complements and red and green complements. As I did in my painting, Two Workers, I want the muted blue background to enhance the colour of the dancer’s skin. I used a square canvas. I like this format for single objects. I was careful to leave sufficient space between the top of the canvas and figure. I did not want to compress or weight down the figure. The head and hands are approximately one third on the left vertical side. The head and hands are also approximately one third and two thirds respectively on the horizontal format. As I mentioned, I had planned my design, values and hues before I started to paint. I will make adjustments as I continue.
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