ating seeing art and history through portraits - rather than the artist's name coming first, the name of the subject did, then an explanation of who that person is/was and his/her contributions to the US. There were some very cool portraits there! I especially liked the ones by Alice Neel. The newest one by the winner of the National Portrait Gallery Competition of Eunice Shriver was fantastic. (Sorry about these stupid underlines in these posts - I can't get the website to irradicate them.)
August 15, 2
009 I'm going on vacation tomorrow for a week so this will most likely be my last post til we get back. Chris (my darlin' favorite critic and husband) didn't enjoy the background on "Split" so I went back into it and unified the background and the body. I'd love some input if you have an opinion too! I'd like to keep playing with varying the background, but I'm aware that this newer one looks more traditional and normal. That's not necessarily necessary for a piece to be good.
That's it for today - I've got to get packing! I plan to sketch in Annapolis and to look for a gallery to represent me but no painting til I get back. I've got 3 pieces burning in me to get to as soon as I return!
August 11, 2009
"Split" is finished now. I enjoyed playing with the background as well as working on the foreground.
August 7, 2009
Chris made me a canvas yesterday so I could get going on another painting. This is from a photograph in my archives which I actually pieced together from two separate pictures. The coloration in the photos was a bit different, though not as different as I've made it here, so I decided to go with it and see what would happen if I accentuated the differences. I'm not finished, but I'm liking the veiled milkiness of the purply left hand side versus the stronger, more intense reds of the right. The picture is 17.5" x 30".
I've been cleaning out the basement the last few weeks and came upon my treasure trove of photos I've taken of models over the years, both males and females, so I am looking forward to looking through them and getting inspired by them. There are many of pregnant friends. Those will be lovely to add to the paintings of other women.
August 5, 2009
I taught drawing the figure to a student today. It was a most satisfying lesson. She wanted to know about the proportions of the female figure, so together we looked at a couple of anatomy books for artists then I showed her a series of pictures I've taken of my models. I erased all their faces so their identities would be completely unknown then we explored the varied bodies, looking for similarities and differences. All the women were standing up straight, facing the camera. The similarities were fascinating - where the waists and groins fell, for example. The major differences were in lengths of arms and curvaceousness of the hips and waist. Of course there were differences in weight, but we weren't looking for such obvious differences. The next step was to choose one of the figures and break it down into spheres and cylinders and wedges as a way to begin drawing the shapes accurately. After we did that proportionally correctly, we began to refine the line then shade it to create form. It's different from how I've drawn before, but I liked it. My student's drawing was amazingly successful considering that she'd never really drawn a figure before. I'll post some of our examples tomorrow once I get a chance to take photos of them. If you try the exercise at home, send me your results, and I'll post them too!
August 4, 2009
Woman in a Chair is finished! The colors aren't showing up as rich and warm on this picture as they do in real life. I'm not sure why that is. They look awesome in Adobe. Oh well, you'll just have to check it out in person! This piece is about 53" wide, so a bit larger than life size.
I spent some time yesterday trying to decide what to paint next but didn't feel quite inspired. I have some new models coming this week, so I will probably wait until then and begin a painting of one of them. It's generally quite inspiring to have models come because the collaboration between the two of us can be so lovely and exciting and interesting. I may have ideas about how they could pose, but usually it's much richer when they take off on their own and move in ways that are natural to them. The model above had been posing for me for about 20 minutes, and it just wasn't really happening. Then we looked around the studio, looking for a prop. I don't remember who said it, but one of us thought about the chair. As soon as she sat down in it, I knew I had the picture I'd been looking for! The shadows were so gorgeous on her body! Afterwards when we put the pictures on the computer and were looking through them, that just affirmed it! Perfect!