Thursday, August 6, 2009

How Do You Spell &#%%$@#!? .......A-R-T-I-S-T

There are times when I think that going to art School would've been a good thing.
Like right now.
Came back from my trip down island to good friends (and the Sooke Show) with all sorts of inspiration. The main one was an image of 2 women from the 50s that really captivated me. I have a veritable plethora of old photos of my mom from the 40s and early 50s, and since she has been dead for 25 yrs now(!) it would be a great painting series to portrait her. She was very photogenic and had a interesting life - what with being a "War Bride", coming over here from Holland to marry my dad leaving behind her large family and all she'd ever known. I never had the chance to talk to her about any of this as she died when I was in my early 30s and we were estranged.
There's more fodder for the blog.
Anyway, the point being that, I was all fired up with the vision of this series and dove right in. The beginning of the painting was just pure heaven, artistically speaking. I got the body and pose nailed and LOVED what was going on. Even her hair was excellent. The way the paint was applied was making me feel I'd finally joined the exalted realm of figure painters.

Then the face.....

Why is it that this part completely frustrates me. I have scraped and repainted and touched up and ad infinitum until I want to cut my head off with a dull palette knife.
And I want to paint this SO BAD!

GAH>:(

Today would have been good to groom poodles*..........


* this refers to the many times my mom would tell me I should've learned this particular skill.

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