Caesura

[Claudemir Bonfim]

Originally Posted by Rob Sullivan

Ah, there it is! Hope it was worth the wait.

Don't worry, it was.
Very nice work Rob.

[Linda Brandon]

Rob, I think this is a terrific painting and I love it. It has a wonderful haunting quality and her pose has such attitude. It seems to me I saw an outdoor male nude of Eakins in a similar stance.

I'm really interested in outdoor nudes (I also have a woman on the rocks painting) and I'm especially interested in the problems you said you had in transferring indoor to outdoor techniques. It seems to be the problems lie partly in turning the form, would you agree?

So well done!

[Carolyn Bannister]

Very nice,

has an almost surreal quality for me, and yes haunting and maybe a tinge of melancholy.

Carolyn

[Rob Sullivan]

Thanks for all the kind words. Sorry for the wait. It's kind of ironic, in a way, as this painting is sort of an enigma for me.

"Haunting" is a good word. I wanted some element of foreboding to come through. The red/green signal off to the left is an old navigational marker (for lobster boats, mostly) that indicates where the underwater shoals are located; pass on the red side, you'll bottom out. I positioned the figure so that she looks like she's contemplating a dive into the "danger" side of the signal. The fact that she is nude underscores a sense of fragility: she is unprotected from the harsh elements. Just to drive the point home, I showed the clouds lowering off to the left, as well.

I hadn't noticed the Eakins-like pose (The Swimming Hole was recently on display here at the Portland Museum of Art), but I definitely see some similarities. An unconscious influence, to be sure.

Linda - I've seen your nude on the rocks (hey, how come it's not posted here? nudge nudge), and I think it's wonderful. Getting the form to turn in outdoor light is truly dependent upon the handling of the reflected light - and outside, that is sky light. "Sky light" is all the light from the atmosphere, except the sun, which is, of course, your main light. This particular piece was a toughie, as I was relying on only 1/4 main and the rest reflected. The coloration and intensity of the reflected light is the key. The overall environment dictates the hue. In this case, it had an ultramarine cast, which, in the flesh tone, is realized through neutralization. There is a hue shift from a pure neutral (where the reflected light begins to model away from the core shadow) into a cool neutral (small additions of ultramarine) in the lightest parts of the reflected light. I messed with this through drybrush scumbling for the most part. It took a lot of experimentation, but I got it close enough, I think.

To get a better idea of the studio lighting setup from which I had to extrapolate, I'm posting my drawing of Hope (another great model), here and in the Nude Critiques section (click if you want to see it right away ) and you can understand the changes I had to make in the shadow values in order to get a convincing "outside" look.

Thanks again for looking!