When it comes to figure painting, I find the approach to be fundamentally the same as a landscape, still life, or any other subject. The common denominator in the approach is a certain sense of naturalness. I attempt to paint ordinary people doing ordinary things and have not (as yet) relied on professional models.

I photograph a lot of people and most are hardly ever used, but I get action and body motion. I also make a habit of “quick” sketching people walking, talking, interacting and doing anything of interest. I believe somewhere in all my files of sketches and photographs I will find a body motion that will always give me exactly what I’m looking for when hit with the desire to create a painting.

There is a situation in which a photograph can save me some time and effort. The appearance of gestures need to be convincing, and in this case a camera is more efficient than the eye. Sometimes a few photographs of an arm or other limbs will help me work out the time consuming details of gesture and foreshortening.

In the painting, The Old Woodie, the use of an old (really old) black and white photograph helped me a lot in capturing the body of the main character. In the picture, the man is standing in a half turned position as he stares back at the gas pump. His right shoulder is lower than his left since he is holding the nozzle in his left hand and raised, compensating for the offset of the weight.

I used the grid mark method on the photograph to get the picture as accurately as I could. The main difference in the photograph is that I put a Stetson hat on the main character. I also did several studies for the painting from drawing the entire painting in graphite to a great many acrylic color sketches.

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