Elephant and Female (Painting + Process)

The final for my painting class this semester was to create an oil painting using a grasaille technique in conjunction with an excessive amount of planning and preparation. I decided to paint the image below of a young woman and an elephant both reaching out to each other in some act of intamacy or embrace. The painting was created over the course of about four weeks and was done on a stretched cotton canvas that I built to a unique set of dimensions. I'll Briefely explain the process I went through in creating this piece. 

The image directly below on brown paper is the first rough sketch I had, this was the original hashing out of the idea using basic reference and some imagination to place the characters in their respective spots. (quick, dirty and unfinished)

The next step was to enlarge the original image with a photo copier to the size I wanted the painting to be, this way I could create a full fledged drawing that would be a 1:1 (match?) with the canvas itself. The two images below are on newsprint and were essentially traced from the photocopy. Using referense photos I rendered the various values and create a map for how my finished painting would more or less look. Take note that I cut out and moved the woman's head a number of times trying to find the appropriate, natural spot where it would rest on the shoulders. 

Once the final renderings were done I took a large sheet of tracing paper and traced the image again outlining the various shadow forms and values so they would be apparent later. Using a graphite transfer paper I essentially layed down this exact image on the canvas. From here I could begin actually painting and experimenting with color schemes and glazing techniques. 

Below are four test studies I did for the painting. The purpose of these fairly quick (ten minute) paintings are to establish a comfortability with the paint and an understanding of the values on the form, in this case the arm and body mass. In addition, these paintings were also used to experiment with different color palettes and colors, for example the painting on the right directly below is using an 'earth palette' consisting of only three colors and white. Some of these studies, particularly the black and white  one are simply to understand the values occurring in the form, others were to play with colored grounds (the background color) or even what color the dress might be. Purely experimentation.

Here is the finished piece. 31 1/4 x 12'' Oil on canvas. The painting itself took only about 6 hours but the planning process of course extened that to the roughly four weeks of class time. Overall I'm fairly happy with the painting, I find it breathes and has a wonderful glow. Both figures appear generally pretty comfortable and accurate and I think the overal dramatic impact of the image speaks strongly.