Fitzy Living FlameIn Private collection

Acrylic on canvas
31 x 24 inches

This is slightly different to the original "Living flame" painting in that I've added a few more darks to this masculine image. The main reason being that a mans body is more "square" than the rounded shape of a woman, and because there are less curves within a masculine body, I had to take away from the symmetry of the image by changing the balance between light and dark, shown mostly as the blue tones and the light yellow tones here. I love the bright colours within the image though, and the use of the bright red in certain areas adds a zizz to the more muted tones. My favourite bit is the buttocks - the way the bright colours add form and interest. It was also interesting to see the subtle variation in colour between the lights and darks on the hands. There's also a lot of other colour happening in and around the body, the understated changes in colour add a lot of vibrant interest to this image.

The “living flame” style of painting is created by glazing the transparent colours over the top of each other, allowing the lower colours to shine through as the translucent colours mix on the surface and is far more interesting to look at than just painting one flat colour. And illustrates beautifully the life force within and around the subject.