Understanding Artworks: Roux's Swamp

I’m very excited to share the thought process, ideas, and execution of the piece “Roux’s Swamp.”

I began on Roux in early 2017 (wow that’s nearly 2 years ago now!). The only real goal I had with this piece was to execute something on a bigger canvas than usual and experiment a bit. Those two goals were definitely achieved.

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Unlike most of my pieces, I didn’t have a sketch for Roux. I chose to execute the preliminary sketch on the canvas with diluted oil paint. I wanted to experiment with a new technique. I found some problems with this technique, and probably won’t be using it in the future. I found it more difficult to get a good composition when painting like this. I think the large canvas size may have also contributed to my struggles with the composition. I struggled with having to fill the space up.

I also used my own body as reference instead of finding a reference online. I wanted to capture some realism, but more urgently, I had a kind of odd pose in mind, so I figured it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to search all over the internet for it. Instead, I just propped up my phone and used the timed picture function to take a full body selfie.

For this piece, I thought the background was of the same importance as the figure. It took up most of the space on the canvas, after all. So I spent quite a bit of time rendering it. I wanted to capture a dark haunting feeling, but also a type of dainty whimsy.

In the end, I think Roux turned out great! Leave a comment about your interpretation of this painting or any other questions you might have. Subscribe to my newsletter to get the next update on my work!

Desire’

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