Okay, back to the drawing board. I'm working on value thumnails for my next painting so that I can be sure I have the best shapes, values and negative space to work with:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 9cm x 11cm, graphite on sketchbook paper

It took quite a bit of fiddling with the shapes and colours in this piece to get it to where I was happy with it. I ended up abandoning my original plan for working with very simple shapes, and instead concentrated on the varieties of light and contrast in my reference photo. Overall, I'm pleased with the painting in its own right, but I'm itching to accomplish what I set out to do in the beginning – paint simple shapes and negative space!

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 30.5cm x 40.5cm, acrylic on canvas

Today I'm keeping up my hand sketching practice while I figure out what to do next with my negative painting...

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 16cm x 12cm, graphite on sketchbook paper

More progress on my negative painting.
I made the decision to push back the shape at the bottom of the canvas, since it didn't seem to quite mesh with the others. As the canvas was getting pretty dark, the next step was to start pulling some shapes forward. I've given myself a bit of a break from the piece to be able to come back to it fresh, and see what's next.
There were a couple of things I noticed early on with this painting – the shapes I used were a bit too regular and simple for what I wanted to achieve, and I'd made the main shapes a bit too large for the composition. Keeping that in mind, but not wanting to give up on the painting, I decided to carry on and work with what I had. I'm considering this a bit of a practice piece. In the next painting, I intend to make a few adjustments in size and shape to really make the most of the negative space.

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 30.5cm x 40.5cm, acrylic on canvas

Here are several images showing the progress I've made so far with my negative painting. My underpainting consisted of a textured white and yellow wash of paint. I sketched in my first shape (at the bottom) and then painted the negative space around it. My second shape was sketched in above, and I painted around that. By the time I'd sketched in and painted around my third shape, there had been several washes of colour over most of the canvas. The next step was to paint a very dark wash of colour around the last shapes, emphasizing the more subtle forms that were still visible. At this point I began to think about my focal spot for this piece, and started to push certain shapes back in order to draw the eye to the centre of the canvas. More work on that next...

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 30.5cm x 40.5cm, acrylic on canvas

This week I'm working on something completely new – negative painting. I've started with simplifying shapes and tonal values in the planning stages of this piece, focusing on composition, and drawing the eye to a particular area of the painting.

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 28cm x 32.5cm, digital watercolour on sketchbook paper

And now, back to work on hand drawing. It seems to be going a bit quicker now that I've spent some serious time practicing, and thankfully, a week away hasn't banished any recently learned skills from memory!

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 9cm x 11cm, digital graphite on sketchbook paper

As promised, the boy in full colour:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 9cm x 11cm, digital oil pastel on pastel paper

We spent a week's holiday in Kauai, and saw (and heard) plenty of these fellows. Although theories vary about how wild chickens got on the island of Kauai, there are countless numbers of them around, since they have no natural predators - animal or human!
I managed to snap a photo of this guy (man, they're fast when they want to be!). Next, I'll be adding some colour to the sketch. He was strutting around, very proud of himself, and I think he'd appreciate my efforts to capture him in all his colourful splendour!

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 15cm x 19cm, graphite on sketchbook paper

I know that I need more practice in drawing a variety of hand gestures, so today, that's what I've dedicated myself to:

©2015 Jennifer Georgeadis. 17cm x 17cm, graphite on sketchbook paper