Painting Figures by Frank Francese

Welcome to Artist Palette Productions at Cheap Joe's Art Stuff!

When I paint my city scenes, I like to include human interest - groups of people doing various things like walking, lifting, standing on a corner, whatever.

Here are a few examples on gesture studies on people. I do a lot of negative painting. What I'll do is get the gesture of the figure first, and then I will come in and put a head on. I usually put it in at an angle. This figure here will be wearing a white jacket so what will happen when I come in and negative paint the background, the jacket area will be completed.

Watercolor is timing. What time should I do what and when? I like to put these groups of people together to where we can have some of the color from some of the fashions bleed into the one right next to it.

This figure will also be wearing a white jacket. His arms may be a little long there so I'll fix that. Now I'll put in someone wearing overalls. He will also be wearing a white shirt. Let's see if we can put one more figure in here for a nice grouping. This guys jacket will define this other figure's jacket.

Now I'll put my dark background in and I can start defining hats and edges. In negative painting you paint what's behind the object to make the object appear.

That's how you can complete a nice series of folks standing around. You can have some fun with the background here using a big brush. Let the color mix on the page. Don't be afraid of approaching one of these quickly. I love to work with a big brush.

When this dries you can put in some minor detail, like shoes or redo an area.