This painting is currently on show at NERAM (New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, Australia) with the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine curated exhibition “Interconnected” there. On until the 26th of June, details here: https://www.neram.com.au/event/interconnected/
If you are interested in purchasing my work please do so via this link https://store.beautifulbizarre.net/product/scott-breton/ .
As always I very much appreciate your support of my practice!
If you’re in the neighbourhood, the show really is worth a visit: the Interconnected show is full of amazing artwork by Australian artists, the 2021 Archibald is also on show in the museum in the adjacent room, and there is an excellent collection of late 19th / early 20th century Australian works in another room, which includes Streeton, both Nora and Hans Heysen, several Elioth Gruner, Tom Roberts, Norman Lindsay and even an exellent piece by Julian Ashton.
Below you will find a series of images showing the process I used to make the painting.
Process - underdrawing
The way that I work now generally begins with drawing in pastel pencil or charcoal on a warm toned ground, with several layers of gesso applied to smooth the weave of the canvas and make it more organic (I don’t like the mechanical quality of canvas, and even the more subtle and organic weave of Linen can be a bit too insistent under the thinner sections of oil paint).
Pastel pencil sticks well, wiping off less easily than charcoal, and allowing a degree of cross contouring and rendering to develop form and rhythms, though sometimes the transient quality of charcoal is desirable.
I use the line to feel out where to push the drawing, emphasising elements of the gesture, stretching or compressing.
Process - Fresco/19th century style area-by-area painting
In this case you can see I have simply begun by generally creating a colour context for the figure with a rough background, which allows a fairly direct painting of the figure part by part, a process favoured in the 19th century and also necessarily utilised with fresco painting (which demands finishing an area at a time because one must paint onto plaster laid that morning). I don’t always work this way, sometimes focussing more in terms of tonal impressionism and establish broad general areas rather than thinking primarily about drawing. But this approach suits me because the emphases/exaggerations of the drawing, as well as the rhythms of masses, are the framework out of which the colours and tones will be derived, and provides a guide for the directional application of paint.
In the end, rhythmic, gestural and spatial qualities emphasised/distorted in line point always to composition, to the idea of meaningful integration - with this supported by the texture, colour and physicality of sculpture or painting.
I’ll be writing a separate blog soon about how the emphases that are done during drawing can imply both the interiority of the subject and the artist, and how the sequential caligraphy of marks can transmit this information, stay tuned!
In person class Brisbane:
If you are in Brisbane and wish to do the class with me, which breaks down my drawing process and provides a series of drills to develop each of the elements in your own drawing, you can add your email to be notified when term 3 dates are announced: https://scottbreton.art/notify-me-classical-life-class
Curriculum summary:
https://scottbreton.art/lifeclass
Online Book version of the course:
My online book about drawing can be found here: https://scottbreton.art/full-basic-ecorche-and-gestural-life-drawing-course