Beginning the First Piece of the Series

While I intend on using this blog as an overall art blog at the moment I am deep in thought about my Senior Studio theme.  Though I have technically been working on it since January I have not turned out any work I am happy with.  I think the idea of such a theme felt too strict at the beginning.  It was so final-the culmination of four years of work coming to an end.  My ideas were firm, a bit too firm, and before long I found myself headed in a direction I was not happy with.  I felt there was no way I could do justice to my ideas.  I just didn't have the skills or mindset to produce what I needed to produce-if for no one else, for myself.  Finally, toward the middle of spring semester, I changed my theme from "Internal Pain" to "The Figure."  This change was partially due to a positive response I received from my Advanced Color teacher (thanks again).  I still wanted to say something important with my work, to address some primal issue that had meaning to me.  The semester wasn't going well and I didn't find anything worth pursuing. 

Once the semester was done I pushed ahead with my initial ideas, tweaking poses and practicing some of the fundamentals of painting.  While this is only the beginning and I have lost half the time to produce the work I feel much stronger than I did last semester. 
Here is the first piece of my theme.  I have no idea how long it will take or how much it will change throughout the process.  All I know is that I finally feel excited about getting involved in this project.  From this point on I will go with the flow and see where it takes me...

Stretched canvas on Blick HD bars (24x36)

I began by toning the canvas with acrylic pigments in burnt umber, neutral gray and alizarin crimson. 

Toned canvas

From here I drew the image from the photo reference with vine charcoal.

Vine charcoal drawing done from photo