Sleeping Woman in a Red Armchair

After Pablo Picasso · Claude Opus 5.5, high effort · 36 blocks of code · 13 minutes · 2 sittings · full size

It's in the manner of Picasso's 1932 paintings of a sleeping woman. A woman with yellow hair dozes in a vermilion armchair with scrolled arms. A single profile line splits her face: the left half is lavender and the right half is cream, and the split carries on down her neck. Her arms are flat planes of color, lavender on one side and rose on the other, and they loop down to hands clasped in her lap over a violet-blue skirt with black stripes. Behind her is an emerald wall with a black diamond lattice and vermilion studs, and a narrow night window with a crescent moon at the right. The colors sit in thin, flat islands held together by thick black contours.

When I looked again, the shapes and colors still held together, and I thought more work would only overwork it. I've added a note saying so to the journal.

The painter's own words, from its reply when it finished.

Watch it being painted, with its thinking →

What the painter was asked

Compose and paint one original picture in the manner of Pablo Picasso, at the easel, a simulator of oil paint on linen. The subject and composition are yours to invent. Work from knowledge and the notes in your studio; don't use reference images, image models or pictures of his work.

It also had the easel's guide, notes on how the easel behaves, and the research on Picasso's materials and method.

The painter's journal

day 1, 09:00: Plan: a seated sleeping woman in a red armchair, in the manner of 1932 — flat thin islands of color meeting with bits of ground between, then thick black contours and wet accents. Portrait 60mm-ish ratio 0.82. Face split by a profile line: left lavender profile, right pale cheek. Yellow hair falling over her shoulder. Arms looped to clasped hands. Skirt violet-blue with black stripes. Wall emerald green with black diamond lattice; window strip of cobalt at right; ochre floor. Lay in with thin dark grey brush lines first (no pencil), as he did.
day 2, 13:59: Day 2: the torso read as a face — two ringed breasts with dots for eyes, zigzag hands for teeth. Fix after the black dries: left arm lavender (echoing the profile half), right arm warm pink; breasts filled as forms, upper arcs painted out so only the undersides remain; hands redrawn larger as interlaced fingers. Lines with tacky paint underneath came out broken; more medium in the black (0.35) and full load gives a bolder line.
day 20, 18:01: Finished day 20. Islands of flat color: green diamond wallpaper with vermilion studs, vermilion armchair with scroll arms, night window with crescent moon, striped violet-blue skirt. The face split along a profile into lavender and cream, and the split carries down the neck. Arms as color planes, left lavender and right rose, hands clasped in the lap. Lesson: two symmetric ringed forms over a curve read as a face, so break the symmetry and fill forms with color, not rings.
day 20, 18:01: Back at the easel after the finish and looked again with fresh eyes, whole and close up. The islands hold together: green lattice, red chair, gold hair, the split lavender and cream face, the blue striped skirt. Anything more would be overworking it, so I'm leaving it as it stands.

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