Expressive FIGURES

Royal Institute of Oil Painters member LUIS MORRIS shows how working from a sketch and mixing up a range of colours early can allow a more creative, painterly finish

- LUIS MORRIS

I find drawing a figure from life exciting but intimidating. One is presented with such a wealth of visual information – and so little time in which to gather it. Success depends upon the ability to decide what is important, and to leave the rest out. I like taking sketches made in life sessions and using them as the basis for a painting. The drawing is my only record of my subject. With no tempting photo to copy, the studio painting is free to take on a life of its own.

As with a lot of my figure studies, I am looking to capture something of the essence of the form using a minimum of detail. I do this by shedding bright light on a few selected areas and allowing the rest to be cloaked in shadows. I want my figure drawings and paintings to have a certain mystery about them. For all the abstraction and stylisation, the end result needs to have a sense of warmth and animation if it is to be successful.

It is important that the reference sketch has an essential quality that can be brought out in the final painting. The challenge then is to make sure this chosen quality doesn’t get trampled on during the course of making the painting. In this case I felt my initial sketch [pictured left], made in pastels across a 90-minute session, had an overall sense of calmness and poise. I was also very happy with the colour relationships I’d found in the body and was keen to enrich those in the painting [pictured right] to create a more vibrant picture that celebrated the way natural light bounced off a human body.

1 Mix on the palette