Sad Girl

I didn't like the way this painting turned out -too dark and gloomy, her eyes were very tired and all night long I kept trying to make things look "right". I made her lips redder. There are lots of proportion and relationship errors, but it is a likeness. An OK painting, except that she looks so sad. Then I realized (duh) that she WAS sad and I feel bad for not being more connected with her in the beginning to realize what she must have been going through. There I was, totally absorbed only in what I was trying to accomplish, selfishly out of touch with what was going on with HER. As if she were a statue or something. I hope I never again forget that these are real PEOPLE.

Mosaic Art

I've never done a mosaic before but lately I have been doing nothing but thinking about them and pouring over pictures of ancient as well as contemporary mosaics. Without hardly knowing what I am doing I am jumping into a project which could be way over my head! But the ideas using color, texture and design are saturating the insides of my brain. My design was based on my interest in nature. I wanted it to incorporate something that I love, and that had to be gardening. There were going to be either birds, butterflies or dragonflies and the dragonflies won out. Once while in the garden there was a dragonfly hanging around me snatching all the mosquitoes that came near before they had a chance to bite so I've always been partial to them as little protectors rather than bugs. I wanted to be sure to include grass and greenery for the land and I wanted it to gradually merge into swirls of blue to represent the sky a-la Van Gogh and then around the border I'd like to have purple with some little gold sprinkled around like stars. Well, those are my plans. We'll see how this thing turns out. I'm doing this on the top of my old coffee table that I've primed with some white paint. If it looks horrible and gaudy when I'm finished then I guess I'm stuck and I won't be able to have any company over who would see it!

Life Studies

When I was in college the BEST art class that I ever took was Life Drawing. I think I was allowed to take it a couple of times and then after that I took Life Painting. It was so rewarding because my skills improved by leaps and bounds and my figures really started to look like humans instead of aliens! I cannot think of anything more difficult or beautiful to paint than the human body and every now and then we are lucky enough to have a nude model to pose for us at the studio. Hmm, since I am not sure what the "rules" about nudes are for blogger I am only going to post her face. On Facebook I have read that there is some controversy about nude paintings so I haven't posted any of them there, either. Too bad for us artists. The canvas by itself is a 20 x 24 and the session was for three hours. I figured I could put in a background later.

Pam models for us tonight

Here are two paintings of our model, Pam from tonight. The painting was done by me and the conte drawing by another member. She was a great model and we can't wait to have the opportunity to paint her again.

Tuesday night 2009

Oh, it is so good to be going back to the studio for our life sessions. Last night's model was Caitlin. I experimented with color and composition and had to rush to finish in three hours, but I may play with it more later on.