Valentino Rossi painting – day 4
See here for Day 3 of this project.
I’ve been doing some studies to figure out the correct angles on the kerbing and to figure out how big to paint the bikes in the background. I need Rossi to look like he’s on the correct racing line coming out of the previous corner of course, so the apex of that corner needs to be in the right place.
The easiest way to do this at this point is to use the old trick of printing out the painting on cheap typing paper and drawing over it with a pencil/pen. Lots and lots of times.
Two examples from about 7 or 8 that I did. Looking at reference photos, each segment of those red and white kerbs seem to be about half the length of a bike. They need to be in perspective both to the left and the right. That means you have to remember Rule Number 2 – Know where your horizon is. I’m using a rectangle duplication trick on the kerbs to get the foreshortening right on them.
Inventing scenes from scratch with perspective is quite fun. Must remember to add a little bit of rise and fall in the land, I think that adds a bit of authenticity and suggests to the viewer that you are portraying a real scene, as opposed to the truth in this case, which is that I’m just making the background up. Shh, don’t tell.
Trying to figure out what those background bikes will look like, where to put the apex of the corner, where the light will fall in order for it to be consistent with the light on the main subject. The front tyre on the first of these two bikes is all wrong!
Here I’m just trying to clarify what the front wheel of Valentino’s bike would look like with the light coming in from the left.
Starting to add those new elements into the painting. I had one of those days today, where nothing seems to go very smoothly and you suddenly view everything about the painting negatively. The bikes in the background need more work, but they are ticklishly small to work on. Valentino’s front tyre is a bit clumsy. I had to paint out the nice gold forks that I had earlier on in order to make a correction, and I don’t think the repainted versions are as nice. The kerb looks – ok.
I always get to this stage in a painting, where the elements are in place but the blingy details are missing, and I’ve spent so long agonising over it that I can’t see the wood for the trees. I got to this stage at about 11.30pm, too tired to look at things as they are. Let’s put it away and re-evaluate tomorrow.
