November - Week 4

Written 16/12/2025, Edited 17/12/2025 - oh dear!

Final piece!

An Onward Woman

An oil painting of a red headed woman staring ahead, much of her hair and clothes are in shadow. The background is a swishy mix of greens and patchy blue 'windows'.

The theme

Perhaps ironically, considering B Prabha's art often depicting the plight of women, I would say the theme of this piece is the joy and serenity of a woman existing in the moment. (Maybe because when I took the photo I had just spent a really lovely day with this friend so we were both in a good mood).

Thoughts on the process

This has been a long period of... procrastination. I felt like I kept putting this off until I felt like I didn't have much choice (such as that is). There were some days working on the painting where I just painted for about half an hour before giving up for that day. Which is better than nothing but it didn't feel very satisfying. They say that art is about the process, but I didn't really enjoy the process because of my mental blocks.

I will say that using a board vs a canvas was interesting, the actual drawing aspect was much easier on a board since it was a smooth surface rather than bumpy but I did prefer painting on a canvas since it was more absorbant so the colours felt richer (I had to layer quite a bit to not have the wood show.

Having a photo with such deep shadows as a reference was very helpful! As I generally struggle with knowing where the correct lighting is when colouring/painting. As you can see I did decide on a green background, with blue 'windows' which does draw the eye to the red har (and pinkish face), so clearly I do know at least some basic colour theory!

The progression can be seenHERE

Comparison with inspiration

An oil painting of a red headed woman staring ahead, much of her hair and clothes are in shadow. The background is a swishy mix of greens and patchy blue 'windows'.
A stylised oil painting of a woman with a basket of fish, her skin is lit with blue light, making the dark brown look more purple

These look quite different, I did my best to capture her artstyle but I think what I had decided to focus on (a close up rather than a full body pose) made that inherently more difficult (I really did struggle with inspiration this month!). I do think that the inspiration is *there* -- with the visible paintstrokes of the background and semi-detailed figure in the foreground. They both even have a 'prop' of sorts (the basket of fish and the mobile phone).

I think the shading on the hair and face is well done, but I wasn't so keen on the fabric. My partial excuse is that I was trying to emulate the original painting AND follow the lighting from the photo. But I think I was a bit haphazard with it (partly due to my mental frustration while painting).

Overall, despite not being in the best mental state while painting it, I am quite happy with the painting.