Christina Pax, aka Christina Paints, has always been surrounded by exceptionally strong women so it’s no surprise celebrating the female body is the inspiration behind her beautiful works of art. Christina chats with us about her art and takes us through step-by-step how to sketch a nudie self-portrait.
Your work centres around the female form, what draws you to painting the female body?
I’ve always been fascinated by people and identity, and I find the female form in particular so stunning and picturesque. The way our bodies curve, cast shadows and reflect light reminds me of sand dunes. Aesthetics aside, my strong intersectional feminist views also inspire and inform my work. I love the messages that painting the nude female form can send. My art allows me to promote body positivity, sex positivity and empowerment, and opens up constructive and interesting dialogue about societal body standards and sexism. I want the world to see how powerful, beautiful and brave the women, trans and non-binary people I paint are for being vulnerable and showing their bodies to the world.
Besides creating your art, what’s the best part of your job?
The responses I get from my clients and followers are the best part of my job. The paintings I do are of real women wanting to immortalise their bodies in art and celebrate who they are. When my clients see their finished painting, they are often shocked by how much they love how they look. This is incredibly rewarding. I also get a lot of messages from people who tell me my art has helped them feel more confident in their own skin.
What advice do you have for aspiring artists?
Follow your passion, believe in yourself and find your own style. Everyone has to start somewhere, so start today and create as much as possible. Put your work out there for the world to see and ensure that either your work or you as an artist have something important to say, a message to spread or an idea to promote – the world needs more meaningful art and artists!
Right, time to give it a go yourself!
What to do:
- Get out your favourite lingerie set, or go au natural, and take a photo of yourself that you feel sexy in! If you don’t want to work from a photo, you can also get a mirror out and work from your reflection in the mirror.
- Start by drawing a really basic outline of your body and the main features. I like to start with the central mass of the body – your torso. This is a good starting point from which to sketch out the outlines of your arms, legs and head.
- Once you have this basic outline, try to add the smaller details, like your lingerie or nipples, belly button, nails and face (if you want this in your sketch).
- Once you have the outline complete, it’s time to build dimension by adding shadows.
This is often where people get stuck, so here are some extra tips:
- Look at your photo or reflection and try to see which areas of your body are darkened due to shadows. If you’re unsure of where the shadows are just by looking for the darker patches, you can also look for the highlights.
- Highlights are the areas of your body that are hit by your primary light source. Normally, areas like your collar bones, forehead, nose and top of your breasts will be highlighted.
- Another way to think about highlights and shadows, for those who are into makeup, is to think about where you would apply your highlighter versus where you would apply your contour. When you’re drawing in shadows and highlights, you’re basically doing the same thing – darkening those areas that have shadow cast on them, and lightening those areas that have light cast on them.
- To add shadows to your basic outline, lightly start shading in those areas. Use more pressure as the shading gets darker. Finally, use your finger to smudge your shaded areas – this will smooth out the pencil marks and make it look seamless.
- You can now use your eraser to intensify your highlighted sections by rubbing out areas that are being hit by your primary light source.
- Now it’s time to go in and add the last little details, like body hair, piercings and facial features.
- And lastly, take a step back and check out how gorgeous that woman you’ve just drawn is!
Check out more of Christina’s awesome work here.