acrylics on 40x50cm canvas board
This was an idea I had several months ago, but never put to canvas before, mostly because I didn't have a totally clear idea and thought it would be a lot of work. The basic concept was to illustrate the three participants in a musical event: The solo performers (solists, conductor), the group performers (orchestra or choir) and the audience.
I managed to finalize the composition now, so I could start, and it was actually less work that I'd have thought. I got to try a number of interesting techniques: The solists' shadows were made with black and flow medium, which thins the paint but keeps it from losing luster. The other nice trick was the audience, which had a crimson underpaint. I put a layer of black with retarder and pasto on top and scratched the audience into it with a rubber brush. Excellent contrast is the result.
On the minus side, this was a bitch to digitize. It's much too large for my puny A4 scanner, which would need six overlapping runs to get everything. So I took a picture, but as the flow medium is glossy, large parts of my picture reflect ambient light strongly. Thus the lighter shade in the top left.
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