Progress, regress

It's been awhile since I've blogged. Perhaps it's because I feel my only accomplishment has been to erase some flowers. Young K. has been my best painting this month, done right after seeing Alice Shille's work. Here she is under glass (too lazy to take her back out of the frame.)

After that, I missed out on finishing S. because she was sick the final Friday, and rescheduled to Thursday, when I help lead a Bible Study. I am so not wanting to finish her from an unsmiling photo ... Iwonder if the frame shop would let me take back her $50 frame?

And, lastly, my husband posed as an Amishman. I would have been more jazzed about him posing with a guitar, but Jack provided suspenders, hat and scythe, when I put out the call for Amish costume. I won't be finishing this. It was a good exercise in painting the full figure, which is rather tricky. Judy G. advised that I take several steps back to avoid foreshortening the legs. Good golly, they were way-y off! So his legs are a bit of a blur. He also has the scythe growing out of his toe... sigh.

Spring is coming, and with it, outdoor painting. I believe my brush is awaiting the release of winter's chill.

High Crimes

Painted Melissa last Friday, and had thought I did fairly well. The only problem was Melissa wasn't happy with her nose. "It's got a ball on the end of it." Well, not really. But she whacked off a good deal of it when I said "Show me." Then I painted it all back in from the photo.

Should have overlaid the photo first. It turns out my friend wasn't obsessing about her nose at all. I have indeed painted it far too large... a portrait artist's high crime!

I doubt I will attempt any more fixes. I made her shoulder too small and head too big as well.

The forehead is quite lovely...
Might just start fresh someday.

Oeuvre

oeuvre n., French. 1. A work of art. 2. The sum of an artist's work.

In the midst of a hurricane of activity, Patrick and I got away to Columbus to see my family there, and the American Impressionists exhibit at the Columbus Museum of Art. My brother couldn't say enough about the watercolors of Alice Shille, and I couldn't stay away. They were as inspiring as he described them. My sis-in-law bought me the museum book, bless her. From it, I discovered a new vocabulary word: oeuvre.

After basking in Shille's oeuvre, I have redoubled my commitment to paint loose. Alice stayed loose, yet modeled the figure in 3D. No easy achievement in watercolor, but she did it over and over, all her life. She could boldly drop veridian and colbalt blue into the face of a child and make it work. Later in her career, she strove to dscover color and flatten the composition to gain a more striking design, imitating the asymmetrical color compositions of Japanese prints. She was clearly influenced by the impressionists and the post-impressionists of her day.

I had started to paint with opaque whites just before going to the Shille show. It was a thrill to see how Alice relied on opaque color to punch out highlights. She would work half the time on toned papers. It looked great.

This is my first painting after seeing the show, done yesterday at the ASA open model night. I managed to drop more colors into the shadows and not loose luminosity: cad orange and olive green kept them glowing. Introduced indian red, too. Added indian red to the top of the skirt gave the skirt highlights a subtile opaque punch.

This painting needs a little more work: The red flowers that I painted perpendicular to the rest have got to go. Her arm under the flowers should be in deeper shadow. I also have to watch the shape of it. It appears disconnected to the arm above the flowers. I also took a photo to help me add one or two finishing details to her hands.

Emphasis on "a little" more work