Title and Medium
"The World's Longest Ice Skating Rink" by Vicki. 12in by 16in acrylic on acrylic canvas paper.
Artist's Statement
I like Lowry's art very much. I Googled Lowry and found many different art pieces, not all of them of factory city scenes, so I thought of a lot of people and where would you find them. I searched for skating rinks and found photos of the world's longest skating rink, which I think is in Europe somewhere. I liked the aerial view and the many skaters and onlookers so I used that as reference.
Lessons Learned
- I think it is very hard to paint little people. Many of my people seem blob-like no matter how many times I repainted them my tiny brush just didn't flow right. I admire Lowry for painting his figures so carefully. I wouldn't do anything differently except maybe paint a city scene like Lowry with the different bleak buildings.
Marion Boddy-Evans, Painting Guide, says:
Lowry does make little figures look easy by having so many of them in a painting. It feels like we ought to able to paint them in quickly, but as you discovered, having lots of different poses and sizes of figures as well as keeping them matchstick-thin takes practice!
You might try painting the body as a V-shape: two brush strokes from each shoulder down to the same point (the waist). Then, if needed, fill in the top of the shoulders between the two strokes. Paint the arms and legs by starting on the body and lifting the brush as you get towards the end of the limb, to narrow the brushstrokes. Then a small one for each foot, starting at the ankle and again lifting as you get to the toes. At this scale, I'd leave out the hands.
I notice the trees on the right have shadows, but the people don't. Take another look at Lowry's paintings and you'll see he didn't like shadows.
