Yesterday’s Work – Gamut Masks

I saw this photo (warning – nudity) on Marcus Ranum’s DeviantArt stock site. It just stood out to me and I thought it might make a good painting. The rest of the pose reminds me very much of a Frank Franzetta character, just less busty and “hippy”.  I’ve  changed some of the features from the original to pick out what I liked about the face.

Acrylic on board. Time, approx 4hrs

AcryilcInterestingFace

I painted this on some thick card because I didn’t have any paper stretched handy. I have a bunch of nice acid-free card off cuts from work which I use to paint quick studies. The advantage is that it doesn’t take any prep to paint on them but they hold little or no water. This added with acrylics fast drying times means that you have to work quite quickly to put your colour down before it dries.

I intended this to be an exercise in using a gamut mask. Colour has never been a particular strength of mine so it’s something that I am always looking to improve. James Gurney is an excellent fount of knowledge for the Gamut mask. He writes about it on his blog and in his book “Colour and Light” which I highly recommend you look at . Below is the mask I was following (Colour Wheel courtesy of James Gurney)

GamutMask

It’s not much of a shift from the original but it defiantly helped to me stay focused on what colours to use. The next step will be to shift the colour of a painting completely, maybe by making a particularly warm image cooler.

Here is a helpful video on shifting colour with Gamut Masks

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