It is Wednesday a week has passed and I returned to Cynthia's today for my last day with Kevin. I get very uncomfortable with this step as it is the summing up and finishing part. I found myself fiddling lots and doing and redoing. I was so focus on the nose and the nostrils I never got to Kevin's right arm which is so dark next to his bright white shirt. As much as I love learning all this I am pretty tense and find myself in a mental fog. The best part is taking all of it home to stare and evaluate. This is the time I start to learn just a little bit of what went on in class and in my head. Time to breath and see what I accomplished on my list of "how do's" for at least this painting.
I got a little more paint on this time and that is a good thing. I worked more on temperature and the little shifts of cool and warm as light crosses over the form. There is so much to comprehend it is head spinning. Sometimes I think I should get it and be done with it. It feels daunting when an issue I may have addressed before reappears in a new form, face, body, landscape or still life. The truth is the more I paint, the more I will experience what I have learned. I will also experience more days when thing go well and when things don't. I have had a row of painting days that I just could not get a painting out of. Yet I was painting and therefore believe there is much that I am learning under the surface.
3 comments:
I feel like I had a similar day today. Today was the second week of a pose for a portrait. I had most of the portrait complete or so I thought. I spent almost three hours painting and repainting the nose, before finally giving up. Just not my day.
I love the way you described it. A blog I started reading recently by artist Stapleton Kearns mentions that painting gets harder, not easier, the more we do it. I think our eye starts catching all those little details we wouldn't have before, but they all push us towards greater knowledge in the end.
Nice! The first thing that caught my eye was the shirt (the lightest thing) with all its planes and warm/cool shifts. Then I looked closer at the face, and how you pushed the colors. I kept thinking it reminded me of someone, and I think it's Cezanne! Check out the fabric here: http://gardenofpraise.com/art47.htm
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