March 28, 2009
I didn't make it into the studio yesterday, but I made up for it today by spending 8 solid hours painting. I worked on, and perhaps finished the Dancer. The picture on the left is how her face started out. The one on the right shows the work I did today:
The background color is very different due to photographing the piece in daylight as opposed to using lights later in the day.
I worked a lot today on the wrinkles on her face. It's very apparent when you see the piece in person and get very close. I also straightened out her nose and made her hands look more realistic. It was fun doing her hair and creating that texture. Hair is always one of my favorite things to paint!
I'll look at the piece again tomorrow and again during the week to see if it still feel finished, but for now it's feeling good. She's such a beautiful woman. It's been wonderful painting her!
The Dancer
72"x39"
oil on canvas
March 26, 2009
No time to be in the studio today - I'm saving that for tomorrow - but something else exciting has happened today. A few months ago I found out about a new company that one of the key executives from Rosetta Stone Language Learning Software was launching. My architect is also his architect... Anyway, it's called ArtQuiver.com, and it's goal is to change the way people bu
y art on the web. The website is being launched today. I've got 12 pieces on its website for now: many of my female nudes, some color studies, and some of my fruits/veggies. I just looked at the site to see what it's like. I love the search capabilities - for people who aren't sure what they like, they can rate some art then see pieces that are in a similar vein. For those who buy art to match their sofas or living rooms - and all of us take that into consideration at some level! - there is a color matcher. You can also choose art by topic or medium or style. It's very cool! Satisfaction is also guaranteed - you have 14 days to have the art in your home and can return it during that time with no problem if you decide you don't like it. Please check it out and let me know what you think: susansingerart@msn.com. Enjoy!
March 23, 2009
Today I had a lot of energy to put into my painting, but not the kind of energy that was good for details and careful persnickety attention, so I decided to start a new painting instead. I climbed up into the loft, pulled down a brand new canvas, mixed my paint, quickly sketched the figure, pulled on my nitrile gloves and started finger painting! I love smearing the paint onto the canvas with abandon. Oil paint feels so good between my fingers and the canvas. And the fact that I can create something beautiful that way is a huge bonus! I used only my hands for 90% of the painting then began to use a fan brush to spread out the strokes so it became smoother, then I used a small filbert brush to do the details like her nipples, neck and navel.
I love the energy behind this piece. This particular model wore her high heeled dancing shoes and danced the entire time I was photographing her. It was a joy to watch her revel in her body and in the movement. Quite a difference between this one and the Dancer I've been working on for a while. I love the enormous variety our bodies offer.
March 18, 2009
I don't know if it's possible to tell the difference between the two most recent pictures of my dear Dancer, but I worked a lot on her belly and her arms and hands. I'm shifting the colors a bit more on her arms and am adding wrinkles to her skin. It takes a lot of careful attention to detail to make skin appear realistic, especially when there are so many exquisite details to include. The next time I'm in the studio I plan to work on her face. I've only done one layer on it so I want to refine the details and especially the color a lot more. (The difference in the colors on the pieces isn't accurate as to what's happening on the pieces themselves. It's more a relection of the time of day I took the photo. The 3/16 pic is from the day, 3/18 from evening when the studio wasn't as bright.)
March 16, 2009Oh, the joys of being in the studio again! Even though my dear friend Gerlinde is still here, I went out into the studio and painted all day long. It felt like heaven. It was great being at the beach, but I totally missed getting to work on this canvas.
Today I worked on her legs and belly and groin area. I'm working to integrate the areas I painted at different times so they all belong on the same canvas. I'll get back to it Friday hopefully. I love working on this piece. My model is such a beautiful woman inside and out, 89 years old and full of wisdom, wit, and vitality. It feels good to be painting such a wonderful person.
March 15,2009
We just got back from a week's vacation in Rodanthe, NC, at the Outer Banks! We stayed in a beautiful house on the ocean where we could constantly hear the roar of the ocean and see the sand, sea, and sky. We had balconies on both sides of the house so could see the Sound as well as the Ocean. It was an incredible house! Here's a picture of it with the full moon rising in the east as the sun was setting in the west. The first couple of days the sunsets were too spectacular to be believed. Here's one of them! The sun reflected off the underside of the clouds giving them a heavenly glow that warmed paradise.
I wanted to do some art while I was there but really wanted to be working on my dancer! I hadn't taken the canvas with me because it was too big and the car was way too full, so I had to be satisfied with other options. The first thing that appealed to me was a bright beautiful tomato gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the panoramic windows. I love the angles of the stem.
The next day Gerlinde wanted to paint too (the workshop inspired her so much she bought some paints on the way to the beach so she could continue creating!) so we set ourselves up on the balcony out of the wind which was starting to bluster a bit, overlooking the dunes and the ocean. It was a grayer day than the previous two had been, and the ocean was starting to assert itself as the winds came from the North. The horizon line was difficult to distinguish from the sky, and the waves were breaking in row upon row of white foam.
The first picture I drew included the path from our house to the beach. The next two were just the ocean. It was challenging to include such a vast scene on 6"x9" of paper! I enjoyed trying to capture the illusion of spray and break and passion and dull colors and power as well.
The rest of the week the wind got too cold for me to enjoy sitting outside so I began work on a still life that included glass and ceramics as well as fruit. It was the first time I'd tried to draw glass. The way I did it was to ignore all my concepts of how glass "should" look and to simply draw what I saw - an abstraction of white and grey and light green and dark green with orangish orangy reflections. The bowl was white ceramic and was interesting to do as the light changed because the location of the highlights changed as did the reflections when I moved something on the table! I quickly learned not to do that anymore! 
This is a different composition than I've done before. It seems almost like 4 objects evenly placed like the points on the 4 on a die, but I think I'm liking it. My eye stays active in the piece looking from one to the other again and again. It's 11"x11" more or less.
March 8, 2009
I awoke at the absurd hour of 4:30 this morning, excited about our impending vacation and wanting to paint! I knew I wouldn't be able to get back to the canvas of the dancer until the 16th at the earliest, so I got up and rushed out to the studio to get a couple of hours of painting in before having to pack for the beach. My husband Chris was stunned when he came out at 6:15 to find me there - he usually has the early mornings in the studio as his time to write sonnets - I'm NEVER there then!
I was thrilled to have the chance to put another layer on the Dancer's left leg as well as to work on her arms some more. I can't wait to get back home and get back to it!
March 7, 2009
My friend Gerlinde arrived from Vienna, Austria yesterday for a two week visit and was immediately game for taking a watercolor workshop with my mother even though she hasn't painted in 20 years! Mom was teaching a Flower Painting Workshop and is an outstanding teacher, so I thought it would be fun to do. She spread out 100's of flowers from her winter/spring garden as well as from the local grocery store and let us go at it. Although watercolor isn't my medium of choice, it was lovely to spend the day with Gerlinde and friends paintings.
March 3, 2009
Another snow day. I feel so blessed to have this unexpected time in the studio these last two days. I'm concerned about not working, but so happy to be creating.
I finished the first layer of paint on the Dancer on all her parts today. I slogged it on too heavily on the leg on the right so then I wiped it all off with a paper towel, leaving a much better set of values as well as a texture I really like. It doesn't match the rest of the figure so I'll re-work it, but I like it on its own!
Because I've done each section individually, they don't hang together well yet. It'll be interesting to learn more about glazing so I can make the sections all look like one cohesive whole Her face looks younger than she is because I haven't put the wrinkles in yet for the most part. I'm most pleased with the form of the stomach. Chris says it shows all the work I've done drawing grapefruits and oranges and apples! I hope I can get that same sense of form and color on the rest of it. It'll be fun to refine the piece from here, though it may be a couple of weeks before I get back to it since we're going on vacation Sunday for a week.
I think we have school tomorrow - I hope so! I'd rather not miss any more work!
March 2, 2009
School was cancelled today due to snow. We actually got about 5 inches of snow! Scott, my stepson, tried to go to work today but drove into a ditch and couldn't make it. I didn't even try to leave the house except to go sledding and to take pictures of the beauty. I love how the studio looks from the street. It's wonderful seeing it in the snow for the first time!
Later in the day I got into the studio and worked on the Dancer. I got the first layer on her left arm, belly, and right leg. 
I know I need to even out the colors, but it's feeling like a good first layer. I'm trying to establish the shape, the form, the value, and the beginning of the texture. She has a tremendous amount of texture on her skin since she's lived so many years. I think that will be the greatest challenge to achieve in this picture.
School has already been cancelled for tomorrow too, so I'll spent the whole day working in the studio then. I'm already looking forward to it.