Painting The Space Upstairs

You may recognize this scene from my earlier post, The Value of a Value Study, about creating a monochromatic study of this photo taken in The Space Upstairs dance studio in Pittsburgh.

I used this value study to help me lay out the values of the final painting.

I began the painting with a pencil sketch.  When I had laid out all the shapes and gotten the geometry of each object correct, I began laying in washes.

I started with the lighter values, but added in some of the darker values and details to get a sense of the contrast and depth of the painting.

I slowly added more definition.

I paid attention to the values within areas of detail. 

By representing those values, I created a sense of that feature.  

For instance, the briefcase (brown towards the bottom) doesn't have any fine brush marks, 

but I did look carefully at where the shadows on the handle and the latches were, 

and tried to create those values.

The stacks of papers on the briefcase had much more detail in them than I included in my painting, 

but I decided that I wanted other parts of the painting to be the focus.

The final painting is my homage to The Space Upstairs and its magical creativity.

Many thanks to Pearlann Porter, Artistic Director of The Space Upstairs for the inspiration!