Latest Boxing/Sports painting

Over the past month or so I have been working away in the studio working on my latest sport painting, and thought I would blog about the process from start to finish.

It all started whilst I was working out at my local gym and noticed this guy working out and immediately I thought to myself that he would be perfect for a painting I'd had in my head for a while. He was big at 6ft 3 and was covered in tattoos, so, not one to let an opportunity slip by I approached him and explained that I was an artist and told him all about my new body of work based on sports. He told me that he actually was a semi professional boxer and that he was in training for a fight, right there and then I knew he was the perfect guy to model for my latest piece. 

I booked him in for a photo shoot about three weeks after we had initially met, I had a rough idea on the composition I wanted and  so went about taking a number of photographic references.

When I then got back to the studio I uploaded all the photos into photoshop and found that the image was making his skin tone far to orange for the final look I wanted in my painting.

I wanted a loose background mixed of blues, whites, and browns but this orange tint to his skin tone would have made the figure sit awkwardly against my background and so I decided to use my own skin tone to mix the flesh colour as  I felt my skin tone would work better in the final painting.

Once I had mixed a light, medium and dark skin colour based on my arm tones,  I painted these three colours onto a piece of paper so I could continually refer back to them with each paint sitting so I had  continuity throughout the painting. 

I used at least three layers on each part of the portrait with each layer adding more drawing corrections, tonal correction, and details

Below are three images taken with my mobile as I painted the portrait section of my painting

Sketching and Blocking in

Here I used a thin mix of Burnt Umber to roughly sketch out the head,and then using my mixed skin tone started to block in tone to start adding form to the painting. 

Refining tone, and fixing drawing

Here I blended the tones out using a nice soft Sable blending brush and started refining the eye socket and nose It was here that I noticed that the head was the incorrect shape and as you see from the back of his neck to the top of his head the curve goes to high and gives him a distorted head shape. 

Finished portrait

As you can see I have fixed the head shape, and added several details like the stubble on his head, veins on his temple and facial hair etc as well as continually changing tones. 

With this piece I wanted it to be strong yet gentle at the same time, the boxer portraying the strength not only because of the nature of the sport of boxing but also because of the sheer physicality of the model. 

But to balance this I believe the pose and expression on his face add a gentleness to the image. 

I was thinking of a suitable title for the image but have decided even with all the fantastic suggestions by my facebook, twitter and Instagram followers I would like the viewer to decide why the boxer is in the position he is and what is running through his mind. And so I decided not to title so It doesn't influence the viewers thought process. 

"Untitled"

40" x 40"

Oil on wooden panel. 

Available at the Darren Baker Gallery London 

0207 580 5332