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| Welcome to Mini Gallery - the place to buy affordable art online |
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 Watch this space carefully... | Having boxed as a teenager and again in the army, I know from personal experience what a lonely place it can be in the ring once the bell has gone. With this picture I want to portray the sense of lonliness a fighter may feel, even when surrounded by hundreds of people in the audience. Exhausted, hurt and in danger of defeat there is nowhere to hide. Only his courage, pride and determination will see him through. |
 | Step 1 Having decided upon the composition I start by making a simple pencil sketch, taking care to ensure that I have the perspective right with the ropes and that the scale of the boxer's limbs is correct. I spend a lot of time with this sketch, any mistakes here will ruin the finished painting. I draw lightly because I will want to remove a lot of the graphite with a putty rubber as I add the pastel. |
 | Step 2 I now start adding the pastel to the background, starting with the top left corner and working left to right. This enables me to work across without smudging. I have decided to keep the background dark and simple with just a few subtle changes of colour. I won't be depicting the crowd, which I think would be make the picture too busy and would detract from the main focus. I work around the ropes so that I can then add clean colour to them which will accentuate the perspective and give the final picture depth. I use a colour shaper to push the pigment around to gain sharp edges where required. |
 | Step 3 Continuing across, I make a start on the skin. Blending the colours carefully with fingers and colour shapers, taking care to leave space for white highlights along the top of the arms where light reflects off the skin. Also highlights on the glove and a change in shade from black to grey. Although I will go over the picture once finished to tidy up edges etc. I want to put in as much detail as possible as I go along to avoid having to do too much at the end and risk smudging. I therefore work on the ropes as I work across the picture. |
 | Step 4 Working further down and across, I put in the shorts using greens, blues and black to try and achieve a realistic silky sheen. Also carefully adding some light shadows on the ring apron which show a slight ripple in the canvass. The work so far has taken about 5 hours and it's time to leave it for the day. |
 | Step 5 Next session, I start working on the head guard not forgetting to leave the highlights. This will become a focal point of the picture so I apply careful detail to this area before I continue working left to right and downward. |
| Step 6 Nearly there now. All that remains is to carefully touch in any untidy edges and to seal the picture. |
| Click here to view more information about this artwork | |
| Click here for more artworks in progress by Peter Williams | |
