This is the rough sketch for a possible painting probably named, "Nude Standing By Tree"

This is a charcoal on newsprint about 24 inches high.  The original idea for this came from seeing a small statuette in an antique auction. I often will see a statue or painting and take a quick digital photo of it and then use it as a starting point for a painting. I then come back to my studio and work with a model to get the right pose. The model might not look exactly as the sketch, it isn't photography, but she helps with the lighting and proportions.  She is also very often a great sense of inspiration on her own.

With this I have decided to first do a pastel of it about this size, 24 x 12 inches.  This will allow me to work out final composition issues and decide on the colors in a much quicker way than during the painting. I have decided to do the oil of this (providing the pastel works out well enough) a bit larger than this or the pastel but I will make the final decisions on all that later.

The face is so very important in my work. This face is only a rough but in the pastel and then the painting she will have to be given the expression I'm looking for. I want her to be looking down and to her right with a sense of her dreaming of something or someone. Would that it were me. [grin]

Let me know what you think, good or bad. I usually learn something from them.