Sevens are always on the go, they are high-spirited and practical and want to be everywhere at once. They are always constantly seeking experiences which are new, exciting, and different. Therefore, try to apply their many talents and become over-extended, overworked, scattered, exhausted, distracted, and undisciplined. They can also struggle with feelings of impatience and impulsiveness. However, they are also extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous.
The idea of the lightning was myself to emphasise and illustrate the strikes of inspiration and ideas, and the energy and high spirit nature of a seven, but at the same time how this can be dangerous, as even though lightning is beautiful it opens up the skies and can cause fires.
The sketch for this painting was really simple, I knew I wanted the edges of the hair to blend into the background even though in the end I gave a little definition, it was to mirror the painting Five. Also when working with images of rain and lightning it is hard to draw out with a line drawing, therefore I knew the mock-up would give me a better idea and insight into the painting and the outcome.
It was still a very simple mock-up because I have experience of painting thunderstorms in hair, specifically from the paintings I have completed of my interpretation of Zeus a couple of years ago. The main reason for the mock up was to work out the tones, as for this piece I knew I wanted darker hair, however not black and the idea of using a white background didn’t fit with the rest of the series therefore I needed to work out the values.
I also wanted to include texture in this image in tie in with Six, and to express the same idea of the bubbling energy and enthusiasm of the personality type.
Generally I am overall happy with this painting and the outcome, however like previous paintings, I am not completely happy with the hands, I am generally more pleased with them than others, as there is more detail however I think they got a little dark while trying to achieve more detail, and there is some weird wobbly lines which makes some fingers look a little deformed.
The model in the reference I used was Hispanic, however I don’t believe I made her look so, and feels a bit ordinary, and this plays a part into as a whole I feel the collection is lacking diversity. I also believe I could of pushed the contrast and the texture more in this piece and it would have made it more unique and play more off the characteristics of the type.