Sophie Ploeg

I have been sharing my progress pictures on this next painting and thought I wanted to show it here too. This is currently on the easel. Underpainting stage. Just burnt umber (=brown) paint on white canvas (oil primed which is the base I prefer to work on). It takes a while at this stage as I want to get the 'feel' right, the line of the neck is vital. The sepia look is quite attractive, perhaps I will do a completely monochromatic piece one day! Colour blocking in: This stage goes quicker. I put in some base colours and make sure that the skin underneath the lace is approximately the right colour. Now I get the small brushes out, a synthetic or sable size 1 brush and start hatching the skin and begin the lace pattern. I'll end up getting lost in all those curly black lines! To be continued!!

Photo by Gareth Iwan Jones Taken for the article in Artists & Illustrators Magazine, August 2012 about painting drapery. See this blog post about the article in Artists & Illustrator’s Magazine. Artists & Illustrator’s Magazine also published the article as a four-part series on their website . 

Excuse the title of this blog post...my children are Star Wars mad.... Here is a sneak peek of a work in progress, depicting black lace. It is part of a larger painting of about 45x35cm, exploring the textures of black lace. After having painted a few paintings with cream-coloured lace it is a very interesting process to paint black lace. The technique is the same but, as always, values are key. Although I rarely use black paint straight from the tube (I mainly use it for mixing) I have been experimenting with it and found it a tricky paint to use on its own. I have ivory black and recently bought some lamp black which is a slow drying, deep cool black (of course besides ivory and lamp black, there is also mars black which I’ll try and purchase soon). The funny thing with both is that is dries up quite mat, which lightens the value visually. That makes it, for me, a difficult paint to work with as you can only see what you’ve done when it is dry or oiled out/varnished. Of course ...