Lewis Hamilton – day 6
This painting is looking a lot more lively now. I’ve worked on adding some variation in the red areas. That red colour is mostly cadmium red with a little bit of cadmium yellow, so I just mixed a big blob on the palette and started adding individual brushstrokes here and there with slightly more or less white and more or less yellow. The subtle variations in colour brings it to life. The most important thing is to add the strokes expressively with a sweeping motion of the arm. Don’t be afraid to mess up the stuff you have already painted – if you accidentally paint over something nice with something clumsy you don’t like, you can always paint the nice bit back in again. Rule number 10 is, if you painted it once, you can paint it again. But if you chicken out and paint conservatively instead of expressively you are probably going to end up with something careful and neat and boring.
I always planned the red areas to be a strong colour against a desaturated grey background but I like the way the free strokes create a vibrancy and a flash of colour.
I also like the way the rear tyre is framed by the dark wall behind it, but I’m not sure the perspective of that tyre is right. I might have to look at it again and re-paint it. The top of that tyre lies close to the horizon so it should be flush with the top of the front tyre, and the wall behind should be nearly horizontal. Something is not quite right there.
I also did some work on the catch-fence on the right, but I’m not happy with it at the moment. It’s a network of small wires in the middle distance – something like that is quite tricky to get right gracefully without making it look overworked. The fence on the left isn’t ringing my bell either, I need to have a think about what to do about that.
