Creating Small Format Dancer Paintings

Recently I’ve been wanting to create a painting with a smaller format, just to switch things up. So I stumbled onto some photos I took many years ago when I had the honor of watching the Nevada Ballet Theatre at a rehearsal.

First I tryed out several cropping options to see what would work best with my 12″ x 12″ canvas. Than I began with an accurate drawing for the placement of the figures. This is very important, a quarter inch off with this small format can give you big problems down the line. Vine charcoal is a good choice, it can easily be erased without any trace. Then a spray of workable fixative.

Notice detail is not a concern, but proportion is. Ask questions like “where does this one’s head and feet fall compared to this figure?”, “where do this one’s hips and chest fall compared to others?”. Always comparing, get one thing correct and base all other measurements from it.

Working forward from one figure to the next. Faces, (especially at this size), are minimized. The expressions can be expressed without detail by being aware of the planes of the face.

Here is an image of John Asaro’s Planes of the Head , paying attention to how the light is falling on the face and what shapes the planes are can create facial expression in a very small face.

You can see some of the changes I made in the final painting;

The black leotard and grey pants on the foreground dancer were to much contrast and almost worked as a blockade to enter the image.

The light in the center of the floor coming forward needed to be broken up for more movement and variety.

A small painting, especially of people needs to be concise and to the point. Not to mention a lot of thinking and economy of brush strokes.