Exercise 1: Painting from a working drawing

I decided again to stick to something simple, a corner of my sitting room.

Making three initial quick paint sketches…

A line drawing, a tonal study and a colour study

All three really helped me to get a feel for the subject and I really like the colour study. I enjoyed painting this, showing the light and reflection on the wall, phone and pot.

I moved out to the studio and tacked up the 3 paintings on the wall and began on a larger scale painting. I found it quickly became tedious, as if copying only from the sketches took lots of decision-making away and therefore there were fewer thoughts and my concentration slipped. Also by this time it was my third time painting the same image and I was starting to feel slightly bored by with it.

I think the final painting is slightly more refined and certainly more realistic but less interesting and lacking the character of the colour sketch.