Gorgon

Think this one was rushed. It's not bad, but it certainly lacks a certain energy or life to it. The whole point of this one was to be an exercise in subtly hiding some important element in plain sight, in this case, the hoplite-looking dude in the background. I didn't do the work of populating the scene with any interesting content to obfuscate the silhouette somewhat, so I just end up with a couple of figures that are incomplete in different ways occupying a very disinteresting space. If I was trying to play with shadows and light in a dialogue of high- and low-contrast, it is barely present and certainly woefully unexplored.

I think the overall idea and composition at work was solid, and the potential is clear, but I simply didn't allow the concept to bake for long enough, for whatever reason. I had made a conscious effort of keeping my use of line under strict, clean, and sparing control, regularly a matter of some discipline for me. I really took a long time for me to cement certain truths of using line in a painting like this; (a) black lines of any weight above hairline will serve to flatten out a form, (b) lines, if used should meld into shadows in order to behave less like lines that describe a shape and rather serve to add definition and possibly mark transitions in shading on forms and contours, (c) lines can create a pleasing kind of contrast with light and shadow for detail work, but it also generates a contrast of quality if you don't use line in diffuse sections, depending on what you prefer style-wise you end up with an ugly portion next to a pretty one.

I do recall that I was thinking more about getting faces in a more comfortable technical spot. I don't think I've really explored making faces follow a certain template for expression and form. I still was not comfortable with drawing faces and hands yet, so if anything, this painting serves as an exposition of some things I hold some technical anxiety over, hands, faces, feet, compositional fulsomeness, atmospheric perspective, spatial perspective and scene population (objects, terrain, set dressing, etc.)

Still a lot of learning and practice to work through here.

• Watercolor brush

• Dip pen (Drawing tip)