Reading By the Pool is an incredibly sensuous painting. It is of a woman in a bikini sunning herself while reading a paperback. You can almost feel the heat and smell the cocoa butter in this picture.
For a lot of reasons, this work was a real pain in the neck. The angle of her jaw, the bend of her hand, and the oiliness of the skin all drove me crazy at some point or other but I’m pleased with the results. But what drove me most nuts, and the thing I'm happiest about, with this painting is its colors.
My process is wildly inefficient. After getting the underpainting sorted, I will play around with colors until something in the picture just start to gel. That might take 15 minutes or it might take weeks. I don’t understand it.
The blue of the bikini and the shadows came first. Then the green of the mat. Then finally, at the very end, greyish pink of the background.
I sold this painting earlier this year but prints of this work are available. A giant print of this painting would look amazing in your beach house in Key West or Kaui.
Check this work and a bunch of others over at the store.
Cheers
Jonathan