Painting An 'Unfinished Study' of A Woman

Hello everyone,

Recently I painted this study of a girl patiently standing and waiting. I painted this as a figure/portrait painting exercise to warm up for a figure painting commission.

Image Above This was my initial digital sketch of the woman before I applied any colour.

After my initial sketch, I then went onto add a coloured paper texture to give a more textured and traditional art feel to the piece.

Above image: The paper texture file I used to place my initial sketch layer on in Photoshop

Leaving The Study Unfinished

Many of the great master artists of the past would do quick figure and portrait painting studies like this, and would leave parts of the painting 'unfinished'. This always intrigued me, I couldn't help but notice that this 'unfinished' look might have actually made the painting a great one, where as if they had 'finished it', it might not have looked as good.

There's definitely something to take from this as developing artists, as we can get so caught up in trying to make each painting excellent, having it well polished and highly detailed in all areas, but this can lead to formulaic thinking and sometimes even stiffness in paintings, lacking interest, creativity and personality. Personally I enjoy spontaneity, and I think part of the creative and artistic process is to enjoy drawing and painting until a certain point, and having the ability to call something 'finished', even when to others it looks 'unfinished'.

This is similar to the 'Alla Prima' painting technique which means that you finish a painting in a single sitting.

Above image I first started to paint some colour directly over the initial sketch.

Above image I then placed the paper texture beneath the sketch layer, and started to develop the painting.

Above image Developing the painting study.

Above image Adding a suggestion of a background, with a emerald green colour which is a complimentary to the warm skin tones.

Above image And finally the 'finished', 'unfinished' painting!

I hope you enjoyed this post and found some value in it.

Thank you for viewing,

Robbie