IMAGINE

Eugène Delacroix, Laliberté guidant le peuple, 1830

Painting a triptych allegory

This project started with a Ted Talks on creativity with John Paul Caponigro. After this talk, I started to use meaningful words that would make me think of a female figure.

These words were: Mystery, Clarity and Femininity.

I liked the idea of a triptych, the number 3 being an important number in a classical composition.

This lead me to paint what is called an allegory: an abstract idea, incarnated by a figure or an animal.

Painting portrait from an idea and not being tied by mere resemblance was such a release. When painting a portrait, you need to be very tight with measurements, otherwise you start to lose resemblance or worse, you are caricatural. The challenge lies with making skin tone that is natural and looks real.

That being said, you cannot paint from your imagination without having years of drawing and painting the figure under your belt. Many times in the past have I failed to come up with a respectable painting of an allegory. However, I think it's important to still do conventional portrait, as training for the more allegorical fun.

Mystery, Oil on canvas, 14" X 18"

Clarity, Oil an canvas, 14" X 18"

Femininity, Oil on prepared canvas, 14" x 18"