Ride on the carousel

Last week end, I wanted to paint but didn't fancy braving the cold outside so I was looking for inspiration for a studio piece. I suddenly remembered a lovely carousel picture a friend of mine posted on Facebook (with her mother and child having a ride). I decided to have a go at it and obviously asked for her permission. I decided to have fun with the colours and keep it loose. Here is the result:

Ride on the carousel  9"x16"    oil on board  

Here is below the original photograph. What caught me eye was the combination of colours, the lovely lights of the carousel, the movement of the scene, the interesting composition, the presence of the people, and the light of the trees and sky shining through in the background. Quite unusually, I decided to keep the format as it is and didn't apply any cropping:

Original photograph

Before starting the painting, I decided to apply some photoshop filters to the photograph to try to simplify the colours, drawing and values. When working outside you are forced to make quick decisions, but when working in the studio it is easy to end up putting too many details so that's why those filters can help:

filter 1

filter 2

Afterwards I applied a grid to the photograph and reproduced the same grid on my canvas in order to transfer the drawing easily.

I then started blocking in the canvas with colours to quickly cover the whole canvas and define the values and relation between colours:

And here is the final result:

Detail

Detail

Detail