Semester 2. Week 1. Practicing Tableaux, Painting.

I decided to paint the stair scene in gouache as many of the famous tableaux pieces, e.g. The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci or American Gothic by Grant Wood, were illustrated using wet media. I chose it over other wet media because after using it for a task during the holidays I wanted to experiment with it more.

I first did a background layer which took me an hour. I sketched everything with a HB pencil, careful to keep track of my proportions - the stairs made that easier as I could measure limbs in steps. I then went over in gouache. After this I added some detail with more gouache. It is by no means a finished painting but a good experiment in the practice of tableaux are and the medium of gouache.

I like the painting as it is simple and I focused on shape, proportion, light and shadow rather than detail. I wanted to get to grips with drawing people in relation to each other and I think I did so successfully. In future I will allot more time to a piece like this as I would have liked to add more detail. I can also see that the ceiling looks strange and the background needs more work.

(1)

Layer One, Stairs Tableaux

1 hour

HB Pencil and Gouache

(2)

Layer Two, Stairs Tableaux

30 mins

Gouache