Revisiting an etching by Lucian Freud

A different way to look at an admired artist’s work

I am very fond of Lucian Freud’s etchings, so I decided to paint this study after one of his etchings from 1985 titled Girl Holding Her Foot.
I painted this figure looking at the image upside down, in order to focus better on shapes and forms without too much interference of my brain’s anticipation of what they represent. This process was inspired by a drawing exercise suggested in a book by @magalicazo and @michellauricella called L’atelier de Poche.

Click on the image below to watch a timelapse video of me painting it.

See below the finished painting

The next day I painted a second version, repeating the same process of painting the figure upside down, but changing the scale and some of the colours.

Painting with oil paint on paper, without adding any solvant nor linseed oil allowed me to paint fairly quickly and spontanuously, as the paint was drying very quickly on the paper. It almost felt like using gouache or acrylic.

Both works are availale for sale for the #artistsupportpledge initiative, please get in touch if you would like to purchase one and take part in this lovely initiative launched by artist Matthew Burrow to help support living artists during the covid-19 crisis.