The stages of life drawing with oil paints

Below I will show you the stages of life drawing with oil paints. This painting of mine was done at a London Drawing summer school. This was my first time using oil paints so I may not have used them to their full potential. I was also rushed for time and am not quite happy with how the face turned out. However, it is only meant to be a simple study.

I forgot to take a picture of the very first stage but I always start all my paintings with a pencil sketch to map out where things are and the proportions of everything. 

The next stage was covering the page in acrylic paint, using only white and blue to work out the different tones of the painting. This provides a good base layer for the oil painting, especially since acrylic paint dries quickly.

 

Then the oil paint comes in. I started to cover the painting using different dashes of colour.

 

I then kept building up the colours very close to each other but not on top of one another. This is because the oil paint then mixes together and creates a different colour completely.

I thought a lot about complementary colours while painting and the colours I used were exaggerated.For example, the blue walls complement the orange floor. The hair and face is not quite complete so I may finish it off when I get the time.

If anyone has any tips on using oil paints please feel free to comment below :) 

Street Photography Source Display at Tate Britain

I am pleased to say that a photo of mine got accepted into the Source Display at Tate Britain! The theme of the competition was street photography and so I decided to enter this photo of mine. I titled it 'Man's Best Friend'. It will be on display until the 28th September in case you want to go and have a look. I will be visiting it myself to see my photo and I'm interested to see submissions from other people :)

Man's Best Friend, Rebecca Cromwell, taken on Nikon Coolpix P500

Photographer of the month: Dennis Hopper

I'm going to start off my first photographer of the week post with Dennis Hopper, mainly known as an actor and filmmaker. I'm starting off with him because he his photos are currently on display at The Royal Academy of Arts in an exhibition titled 'The Lost Album'. All photos displayed were taken in the 1960s, showing the younger generation or reminding the older generation how much has changed. It is on until 19th October and I would strongly recommend checking it out!

Below are some of my favourite photographs from the exhibition

Photographer/artist of the month

Hello everyone,

Just a short post to say I've decided I'm going to start doing photographer/artist of the month posts which may turn into fortnightly posts. This could be someone who has inspired me, has a current exhibition on or someone I have recently discovered. I will share with you some of my favourite work of theirs.