A Few Updates

I've been busy - so busy in fact that I don't have time to do much art on my own. Here are a few of my more recent pieces. These pieces are small: the globe and marble painting is 5 x 7 as is the painting of the seated model. The portraits of Penny are all 6 x 8.

So the above paintings are all small. The round things were done from photos. I know that the highlights are in the wrong places on the marbles for the shadows to be cast where I put them - however on this little piece I really don't care. I tried to put them in the proper places on the marbles and it looked sort of chaotic and very busy and distracting - having the highlights all in the same place - even though it is not "real" feels better to me. I am marginally happy with this little piece. It was fun to do - remember I am a fan of round things after all ;)

Then the following 3 paintings are of Penny. The first one is a burnt umber pick out under painting. I just sat down and began to paint - rather mindlessly without focus or direction - it was a model, it was a portrait, it was boring. I spent quit a bit of time puttering around on this little piece - feeling restless and actually kind of bored. I had brought 3 little canvases with the intent of dividing my time up into 3 one hour quick sketches - but like I said I lost focus and spent 90 minutes or more puttering on this. The second painting is the best - I will have to reshoot it and post a better photo later. This was done in about 20-30 minutes all with a knife, all direct with out any drawing first. Now THIS was fun - I loved doing it - I love the painting. Then in the last 20 minutes I did the next one - it was only really about 15 minutes with whatever paint was left on my palette. I find it interesting that the first and last of the 3 painting are more accurate to the pose -but the second one is more like Penny - in an essence sort of way.

The last 2 little paintings are 5 x 7. The seated pose was about 2 hours, and the portrait was about 15-20 minutes with a knife again. I really like painting fast with the knife. There are things that I like and am happy with in both pieces and things I am not happy about - but I guess that is probably normal. I still feel like I am inching my way forward to something - still not sure what though.