HOW TO PAINT A LIFE-SIZE FIGURE

A TWO METRE TALL ADAM

My plan here is to paint a life-size male nude: Adam. 

And when it’s finished, I’ll do a life-size female nude, Eve. These two works will become part of my Adam & Eve series of paintings. 

Here’s a bit of maths to start off with: According to Wikipedia the average height of a male in France (where I live) is 175 centimetres tall. 

For compositional reasons I’ll need some space at the top and bottom of the painting, so I’ve decided that the overall canvas size should be two metres tall by one metre wide. 

STEP ONE

Get a mount (a canvas or board) with the right dimensions. For practical reasons I’ve chosen two canvases measuring 1 metre by 1 metre. Then I fixed them together.

I’ve used an acrylic sizing medium as an undercoat.

A stepladder is needed to get to the higher bits.

STEP TWO 

Block in your image. 

I’ve used a grid system to transfer the basic drawing I did on paper onto the two canvasses.

STEP THREE

Start filling in the colour—it's just like painting by numbers.

STEP FOUR

Keep going until the whole canvas is covered in colour. 

I’ll add a photo of the finished painting as soon as it’s ready.

WHAT’S NEXT

Watch this space for further developmrnts—and then for how Eve progresses.