Self Portrait 2010

Self Portrait 2010
Oil on Panel
6 x 6"

I've been a little blocked lately, so this is what I do when I can't face painting for a while. Self portraits aren't always about vanity, and sometimes aren't even about soul-searching. When I'm blocked, this is the perfect thing for me to do. I don't have to worry about a model, sales, or whether anyone else will like it. I do it for me, an exercise. I'm a familiar subject, but I've changed since last time I did this, so that's always interesting...and a little revealing too!

Figure Painting Class

Kirsten (i)
Oil on Panel
30x20"

Here's one of my recent paintings from Phyllis Shafer's Figure Painting class. I didn't get to finish it unfortunately, but I was pleased with most of it - especially the face. Isn't it always the way....the section which took the least amount of time and effort was the bit which worked best.

In my opinion anyway.

It's easy to overwork something, or overuse a trick I've picked up that works. I feel like I'm still very much finding my way with these figure paintings, but the common theme of my practice seems to be: Stay loose, stay back, take breaks. The minute I start 'noodling' or trying to use a small brush when a bigger one could be used to make one clean, precise mark, is when I need to have the discipline to stand back for a few, take a breath or two, and look properly at the entire painting. Then I look at the painting upside down (head rush!), and also refer back to my subject by flicking my eyes back and forth between the painting and the model. This often reveals the mistakes I need to correct (i.e "oh my god the head is tiny!! how did I not see that?!!")

Then back to work.

Three More Oils

Love
Oil on Panel
24x12"

Expectation
Oil on Panel
24x12"

The Future
Oil on Panel
24x12"

Another Portrait

Kristen
Oil on Panel
12x24"

I'm really into this format - widescreen!

I've been reading a useful book: The Simple Secret to Better Painting: How to immediately improve your art with this one rule of composition by Greg Albert.

The rule is short and sweet: Never make any two intervals the same. The rule refers to composition, value, marks, everything - and is incredibly effective. It has really made me think about what I do (I've been doing a lot of thinking lately), and has helped me solve some of the issues I've been scratching my head over in my work.

Two Oil Sketches

Remember not this sins of my youth nor my acts of rebellion
Oil on Panel
12x12"

I've done two quick oil sketches this morning, and I'm so excited I had to post them straight away. I loved the echoes of Degas, Schiele and Toulouse - Lautrec's women in this model, (and maybe a hint of Marie Antoinette...? ) and so dressed her up accordingly (just ankle warmers, and stockings for some pictures) I wanted to capture something reminiscent of older paintings, with a distinct stamp of the now declaring it to be contemporary. The model has piercings in her cheeks and belly, as well as the very cool tattoo you can see on her back. The quote is a slightly tweaked passage from Psalm 25 in the Bible.

Untitled study
Oil on Panel
12x12"

So I'm really feeling the looseness I've been striving for in my painting today. It's exciting, it's like the penny has dropped, finally, and I feel freer. I think it's a combination of the observation skills I learnt with the painting a day project, and regular life drawing with Phyllis Shafer.

What's slightly irksome though, is that these weren't done from life (I took photographs). I tried to paint when the model was here, and I painted this horrible, muddy, stodgy piece of crap which is now of the studio floor, destined for the bin.

I think there are a few reasons/excuses for this: a) I was using a scrap of unstretched canvas, which despite the extra primer, was still really absorbant, and b) I was feeling a bit overwhelmed to be painting a figure from life, despite the fact that I've been drawing from life for weeks now. It's weird, sometimes I worry so much about the model being comfortable/warm, etc., and that I want to produce something quickly that does them justice, that I just lose it. I think I'm over this stuff with drawing now, so hopefully with practice I'll be able to relax enough with a brush in my hand to achieve the same loose painting from life.

A Painting Study

I so enjoyed painting this! It's a study for a large oil on canvas - part of a new collection I'm dreaming/obsessing about right now. I want to integrate elements of design and drawing with painting. I'm also into the idea of big hair and kooky hats for these...such fun! My classmate Kristin Boles posed for this, such a pretty girl - and willing to let me mess up her hair in a cross between Amy Winehouse and a 60's Prom Queen..much back-combing and hairspray to create this huge style - Thankyou Kristin!

Stegasaur

Stegasaur
Oil on Canvas Panel
6x12"

Click here to buy this painting

This is Taylor climbing a boulder problem called Stegasaur in Hueco Tanks State Park, Texas. It is an amazing, thought provoking problem, which involves climbing wave type rock features under the roof of a cave. None of the holds are positive, and Taylor performed some incredibly gymnastic moves to emerge from the murky depths. I spied this quite revolting vantage point from the outside of the cave, and despite the copious rat and bat scat, crawled in to capture this image. I'm glad I did now, because I think it's one of the most successful climbing images I took out of our whole road trip - and that's saying something - I've got thousands of digital photographs, drawings and paintings from the 18 months or so we were traveling for.

A common theme is emerging from both my paintings and photographs...light. Dramatic light, usually from a single source, is becoming the defining feature of my work. It's strange, I've always been interested in light effects, chiaroscuro particularly, but I'm only finding now that my compositions are just organically trending 'toward the light'.

This is a study, as most of these daily paintings are, and I'll post the final painting when it's done...it's going to be HUGE!!

More Bedtime Stories!

More Bedtime Stories
Oil on Canvas Panel
10x8"

$79.99
Click here to purchase

I got a nice big delivery of art supplies yesterday from Dick Blick, so I was really excited to try out my new canvas panels for these studies. I also ordered to big roll of canvas and some 60" stretcher bars, so that should keep me busy for a while!

This is a painting I've had in mind for a long time, and has a lot of meaning besides the subject for me. Most things I paint end up having some kind of personal metaphor embedded in them, whether or not I realise it at the time I paint it.

Sometimes I have to sit back after I've finished a big painting, exhausted, and just stare for hours at it. I'm becoming familiar with it, which I know sounds weird because I might have just spent a few weeks being obsessed with it while I'm structuring ideas, making drawings, stretching canvas or preparing a panel, and then actually painting it.

Sometimes it feels like someone else painted it, and I just came along at the end and decided on a title. I think that's when I know I've really allowed something subconscious to drive a piece, and so the emotion can be somewhat raw and challenging. I used to be fairly spiritual, and imagined that someone was channelling though me in some way. I don't feel that way any more. I know it all comes from me, from my experience, from my body, and my mind. It's not always an easy thing to accept.

Ellie Grace

Bid for this painting on Ebay!

So the big painting is coming together...in my head at least. Since Ellie is in Wales and I am here in Tahoe, painting us together is going to be a challenge to say the least. I've done some preliminary sketches for the concept, which I have mentioned in previous posts. The imagery will be loosely based on the Mad Hatter's tea party/Gwen Stefani's video to 'What you waiting for?'(See below). This is partly a nosalgia piece, and will involve mud pies and all those imaginary elements little girls are so good at conjuring.

The composition is going to be tricky, but I've enlisted my sister-in-law, Emily to help, by dressing Ellie up and taking pictures of her based on my sketches. I'll then re-draw the ideas with the new photographs and take it from there. I've been taking pictures of the birds out here on our deck, and even set up a mock 'tea party' complete with soil-filled cups and peat-pellet 'fancy cakes'to sketch outside. I'm sure the neighbours think I'm off my head - but that's OK, artists aren't supposed to behave like accountants are they?