On Friday we have the challenge of painting our (clothed) model in the garden in front of the School of Art and Design. Hopefully the novel setting will help us experiment with a way of painting that simplifies the subject matter into forms and silhouettes.
In this, more contemporary, painting by Frank Hobbs the artist has clearly separated the foreground and background, on one side light against dark and the other dark against light.
The contrast between foreground and background is often the principal mechanism that gives a painting its identity so that the human figure becomes part of, rather than the main element of a painting. (John Singer Sargent, below)
As we find a spot to paint our model "en plein air" on Friday it would be worth considering ways of making our composition and colour palette as simple as possible so that we can get the full effect of being immersed in the scene rather than trying to record less impactful detail.