Paul Higgins

Joined Artfinder: June 2015

Artworks for sale: 3

United Kingdom

Updates from Paul Higgins's studio

  • Winter painting color study

    Winter painting color study

    As with values it's sometimes helpful to undertake a color study like this one to work out your paintings color scheme. Again the aim here is to resolve as many issues as you can before committing to the final work where you want to focus mainly on the detailing and finish without worrying too much about the basics. Even though this sketch is quite rough it still gets across a great deal of the atmosphere that will make up the final painting. It might seem a bit complicated to be doing all this preliminary work and there are some artists who get excellent results by just 'jumping in' but I have found that in my own work the effort you put in at the start will repay itself many times over as you can approach the final work all the more spontaneously exactly because you have a strong foundation upon which to apply your skills.

    29 June 2015
    Final painting of April Sunshine

    Final painting of April Sunshine

    And here is the finished work. As you can see even though the final work is of course a lot more detailed I have not really deviated much from my value sketch- it's still there like the foundations of a building, holding everything else up.

    29 June 2015
    Value study for April Sunshine

    Value study for April Sunshine

    It's always interesting to see 'behind the scenes' of things so I thought I'd post this value study for my painting 'April Sunshine'. Artists love to talk about color and light in their work- I think because these are the most enjoyable aspects of creating a painting- but alas! Before we can even think about these things we must first address values. Value studies like this one are really the backbone of a good painting- unless you have taken the time to understand the values in your picture no amount of hard work on color or light will save the painting- so I will always take the time to work through my paintings in this simple way, just to be sure that they work purely in terms of the contrasting values. Not as much fun as splashing color about I admit- but well worth the effort.

    29 June 2015