TODAY'S FEATURED POST

Painting Process Breakdown

Robert Hunt

This month I thought I would share a little painting process. This is a painting of Arctic Explorer Frank Worsley* that I did as preliminary work as part of a project I'm working on. I start by doing a very loose sketch to lay out the composition I do the same to rough in the position of the facial features I start adding some transitional passing values and modulate the colors in the drawing. most…

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EVERYDAY ORIGINAL

“Barn Swallow” by Leah Mitchell

YESTERDAY’S POST

Image

Rückenfigur

Lauren Panepinto

September 4, 2025 - I didn't know there was a word for this until recently, but of course there is, and of course it's German. Rückenfigur (literally "back-figure") is a compositional device in painting, graphic art, photography, and film. A person is seen from behind in the foreground of the image, contemplating the view before them, and is a means by which the viewer can identify with the image's figure and then recreate the space to be conveyed. (from Wikipedia) The textbook example of this is this image is Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog: And in fact, I only heard the term Rückenfigur at all because there was just a Caspar David Friedrich exhibit at The Met. He loved this device and it shows up in his work a number of times:   Obviously Friedrich…

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