new painting style- process

I am currently passing through some changes in my work. I am experimenting with a new medium ( oil paint) and adapting my style, while having all this mixed feelings. I am very excited about the possibilities that oil paint offers with different techniques but at the same time I feel a bit frustrated by the things I don't know and I am second guessing my every move.
It sounds more negative than it actually is because this type of “second guessing” is part of my learning process and it helps me find the things that I need to pay more attention to and the frustration is a sort of ambition about the things I want to learn.
I sometimes have a rather unorthodox approach to learning meaning that I start like I know everything - the techniques, my composition, my style, my subject, my theme when actually I know only the last one and some intentions for the rest.
So I know my theme -Identity
For the style I know I want to go closer to surrealism while not renouncing completely abstraction and decorative elements
For composition I know I want to study the renaissance masters and work a lot with golden ratio (for a start)
The subject has to touch a lot of ideas I have while I don’t want to get too literal.
For the technique, I want to try to study again the masters and work in layers but I have a lot to learn here :)
To establish my subject and experiment with technique I started very intuitive, painting realistically all the ideas on a canvas with no regard for composition or style.
Most of these ideas will later be translated in symbols and some of them already have a symbolic value.

So this is how the first exercise looked

It will not pass the point of unfinished underpainting but it was a great exercise. I realized that the more layers and medium I use my painting get’s yellow and that working in a realistic style with so many elements requires good references ( which I did not have ) so don’t mind the proportion mistakes :P

So I learned I have to make a detailed sketch with all the elements and then a detailed drawing for the value range so I won't have unnecessary layers .

Next step - composition in my style sketch

After making this sketch where I translated my ideas in my style, I had to establish my lighting and make a lot of notes on it.

Than I transferred the sketch on a new paper and started the drawing.

I will follow up with a post with the finished drawing and hopefully the underpainting, until then I would appreciate your feedback, so don’t hesitate to comment :)

Hope you enjoyed this post.

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