So, where's Lady Godiva? I hear you all ask. I know, I had said in 2021 - when  Coventry was UK city of culture - that I would do a painting of Lady Godiva, as it had always been in the back of my mind to do, and it seemed like the perfect time. Well, She didn't materialize as planned (in 2021) mainly due to a lack of time. In my defence I did leave it rather late in the year to make the decision. Add to this the fact that I've never painted a nude before I soon realized that I'd bitten off more than I could chew. 

I did manage to get a few preliminary sketches done and a composition finalized. But I needed to practice painting a figure. I hadn't even done more than a couple of portraits - me and leonardo (de Caprio) so I decided to practice, initially with some portraits, and then some figure painting.

Due to various reasons it wasn't until this year - 2023 - before I got around to this. As described in my post on May 29 I started off with a copy (well that's how you learn) of Van Oust's 'portrait of a boy aged 11'. This was followed by Botticelli's 'portrat of a young man'.

I was fairly happy with the finished piece - I didn't bother with the decorative tunic as my objective was the skin tones.

I chose Robert Campins 'Portrait of a Woman' for my next attempt. I made a few versions of this as I wanted to try different mediums.

The first was watercolour which didn't turn out too bad considering my lack of painting experience. 

Unfortunately I used cardboard - as in a cereal box - instead of watercolour paper, because the student grade paper I have claims to be 90lb but it buckles very easily. I wasm't going for a likeness in any of these pieces as they're only experimental - which is probably just as well.. There was an unforseen problem with using the cardboard though in that the fibres began to loosen when it got wet and consequently the paint became mottled as it dried.

So my next attempt was on watercolour paper.

Not too shabby though it could probanly use a wash of cad yellow as it's a bit pale. I never realized how transparent watercolour black is - that small section used half a pan (and thats a small -A4 - portrait)

I'm also doing both acrylic and oil versions of this image as I'm really struggling with using watercolours - although that's probably more to do with the paper (I'm a bit reluctant to use good paper for practicing due to the cost. Is it a bit over-priced?) 

I will be showing the results of the other attempts in my next post.