Original artwork description:

This artwork is inspired by the body work of Pierre Boselli, with beautiful muscles catching light and reflected light in a way that I had to paint it.

The grid you see in the background is my starting point, and I like to leave it exposed in order to show that the finished image started somewhere. I feel this is important as while I was studying art I often wondered how the artist begins and proceeds with a painting. These construction lines give hints about how the artwork was built up over time and through many brushstrokes.

Starting with a frame of the figure with the grid as a boundary, I added big strokes of oil paint to give a sense of shadow and leaving the extreme highlights to the white of the board initially, until I had a better sense of the chroma or colour intensity I wanted in the highlights.

After this large strokes of colour gave an idea of the form, until I reached a point where I could be playful about adding unusual hints of colour I felt in the source and in the process of painting; including purples and blues, particularly in the reflected light in the right of the painting.

Following this is the addition of highlights and finer details, including indications of the nipples and the finer edges between the muscle groups.

Materials used:

Oil paint on board

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