I was crazy to think it was finished

This week I brought in my portrait commission to painting group, Terry brought her two children rather than her friend Kit Keith, and Dallas brought himself- which was a major accomplishment.

It was great to have Dallas there, and I think Nicole and I both hoped that he would keep coming. Nicole started on a new piece after a necessary trip to Michaels and Office Max, and Terry worked on a great sketch in watercolor or (oil on paper?), which she drew on with charcoal pencil. Terry was in rare form discussing astrology and giving opinions on work in different accents. She had to take her kids to Borders for a bit as kids do grow restless while adults are working on art for about three hours.

Trying to 'shut out' the energy rather than to 'take in' was difficult. Still, I think some progress was made. I forced myself to work on my portrait of David. I thought to myself, "How on earth was I thinking that this thing was finished?". Sometimes this happens. You do well on your first few sittings with a painting and you get an inflated ego and over estimate the progress of the piece. Delusions of grandeur if you will. Such was the case with David. Clearly, after the paint dried there was more work to be done. For starters, the eyes were 'wrong'. The sitters right eye was not even with his left, and one eye looked more open than the other one.

Secondly, that second coat of paint just looks so much better.

What was most vexing in the end though, was the background. I had previously created a dark background of olive green and paynes grey against a toned canvas. I thought this might work for a while, then I came to my senses. I painted a greyish- yellow ochre around the olive green/paynes grey in an attempt to cover the lightly toned canvas and yet leave that initial dark background that is directly behind the sitter.

After I let the painting dry in my car and create a huge amount of odor in my vehicle for several days, I decided that the background wasn't working in this way. As much as I wanted to leave it unfinished and finished at the same time, this attempt at simple vs. complex was not the answer.

My next move will be to use the lighter yellow ochre color all over the entire background- let that dry, then perhaps do a gradation of color from dark to light behind the sitter. This is very common. There will be a lot more drying involved.

Additionally, I am still not really happy with the eyes but will work on the background then see how I feel about them. The painting always looks different in real life rather than in digital. I also plan to lay in some hair in darker tones. Again, I don't want the hair to be overdone.

Dallas and Nicole really loved the shirt I think as it is now. I decided after a few days of rest that I like it as well. It has that abstract element that I so desperately crave with all of my work. I need to send the clients a picture of the piece as it is now in order to a. get some input and b. prepare them for how the portrait looks, and c. make them think or feel they are involved in the process in some way.

Could this really be finished?

I've been procrastinating a third commission from a couple who wants portraits of all of their grandchildren for what I would guess to be two months or so. When I actually sat down and started the project, total painting time took me about two to three solid hours of painting, or a full work day. I was so vexed at myself for procrastinating for so long, and then realizing in the end that the bulk of the painting took me only two hours? Seriously?

Sometimes this phenomenon happens. I was talking this over with design friend Jen, and she noted the same phenonmenon. We decided that the procrastination time is not actually procrastination, but rather a time when your mind subconsciously works so hard on what it will do that it already has it figured out at 'go time'. And, you've put it off for so long that you have the pressure of finishing it *today* before the monkey crashes down on your back.

I meant to get a photograph in better color and quality of the sitter-(David), however, thought that I would just start by laying down composition and initial color with my own printed photograph just to get the ball rolling. What I came up with was something dark yet fresh. It seemed the colors were blending just right. I used much more yellow ochre mixed with black, darker greys than I normally do, and tried to create subdued flesh tones all in an effort to render a more masculine portrait. I felt at the end of the day that even though I used darker, and more muted tones than usual , I created strong contrasts. I framed the portrait in a very dark paynes grey mixed with olive green. I didn't want to add any detail to the background after I was done with the first work session or sitting with the portrait.

When I worked on the portrait I struggled with the lips, and now looking at it for the first time since I worked on it three days ago, the sitters right eye is too open, the left too closed so I will have to even that out. I don't want to ruin it, so again, I will be at that point where I will have to do a million things before getting to a few corrections that in the end will take maybe thirty minutes.

This portrait is not like the other commissions I have done for this client, however, I am contemplating doing the above mentioned corrections and going to them with what is there now. I do want to do a little work on the shirt- maybe just a sketchy white version of it. I would though, perhaps like to make a new stretcher for the piece in a slightly smaller size- which I don't do often. So, if they (the clients) go for the unfinished/(finished) piece without the overly done background then I will have to convince them that the piece needs to be smaller than the other two.

Lots to think about for this week.

I need to have this in a state of progress without dropping the ball for another two months.

A New Additon

For some weeks now, Nicole and I have been attending our painting 'group' by ourselves. Dallas has attended twice or maybe three times if my memory is correct, and Janessa from CA has come once or twice. Nicole and I have been the only constants in our little project. Thus is the nature of the 'art group'.

This week though, Terry Shay came to join us with her art endeavors and as usual the evening started with talk. Terry is also a graduate of Fontbonne whom I met near the end of my time there, while she went on to graduate a few semesters later. Terry works as a freelance illustrator, and as adjunct faculty at St. Louis University and if I absorbed this correctly, her goal for now is to create five large paintings that she will show at Boogaloo, a restaurant in Maplewood. Terry is vibrant, extremely humorous, and eccentric. A new dynamic was created with her presence. We launched the evening comparing stories of childbirth- where Terry re-counted and re-enacted how she gave birth to her son Ben who was coming out of the birth canal, the nurse didn't believe her and wanted to start an IV... and ultimately in the end the baby popped out and was barely caught by the hospital staff.

It was a slow start with the new dynamic and I didn't know quite where my goals were regarding my aloe painting. My mind had been hazy the entire day with not knowing what to do because I was faced with the dilemma of having three different pieces that were brewing either in my mind or on canvas. In not focusing on one thing, I accomplished nothing during the day but kept myself busy procrastinating in one form or another.

I brought my three 'pieces' to CA (Chesterfield Arts) not knowing which direction to take. My aloe painting was almost complete, and I was in that stuck mode where you don't want to mess it up so you are afraid to put anything else on the canvas. I have a commission that I haven't even started on that is becoming a very large monkey on my back, and I have a third piece that I have started in my duality series with a triplicate image of Madelaine which is to be shown upside-down. I would like to get going on the latter piece as well as the commission, while concurrently building new medium sized stretchers for "Duality". I also brought one of my sketches on a large canvas for "Duality" that was in competition with the aloe painting, and am currently trying to decide if I should start over with a new sketch on this piece, tweak it a little, or carry it through.

As in the past 7 or so weeks, I only wanted to work on "Aloe" and completely forgot to even ask about any of the other pieces I brought. While we talked mainly of love and marriage, I tried to work out the hand and arm issues, feeling in the end that they might be done. Nicole thought the new skirt color was good- although I think we decided that I missed its original color. I re-worked some of the background where I had re-drawn grid, and I put a dark glaze over Erica's pants in a purple- brown. I decided that the last thing that I needed to do was to work on Erica's portrait a bit more, and I needed to determine if the shadow color on her neck was what I wanted it to be.

In the meantime, Terry worked on stretching a square sized canvas and gesso-ing the canvas with a clear gesso which I thought was interesting. She told the story of how it ended with her last ex. She said she sat on a mosquito net in Greece, looked up at her beau, and knew it was over. Funny how you can know these things and that one wrong move could shatter a relationship. Really, we know that this was not the reason, but rather, this was the straw that broke the camels back. I will always think of her when I see mosquito nets now.

Terry said that next week she would try to bring her friend Kit, who paints on mattresses and is represented by William Shearburn (gallery). I asked if she would carry in her mattress... I get a little uneasy with new people and new situations at times. However, I was happy that we would possibly be expanding our horizons.

Getting From Good To Beautiful

The evening started with frustration. Many nights I expect that my husband will be home sooner, and this early evening was no exception. Alex had a deposition, which is a rarity- and I expected or rather hoped that this appointment would last about an hour and then perhaps he could come home early. The deposition started at 3 p.m. and the lawyers had the appointment at his office. I made dinner so that it could be on the table by 5 p.m., then anxiously waited an additional 45 minutes while weeding outside and stewing until I was at the peak of my crankiness.

I realized my irritation was my own fault- for expecting too much, and for wanting to have my cake and eat it as well. Some changes would have to be made. The family dinner on Tuesday night would have to be nixed. I would have to drop 'A' off at the Oma's, and go to painting 'group' with a packed lunch. I felt guilty to Nicole for always being late. Some compromise would have to be made. Dinner just wasn't enjoyable when I was ranting to Alex about my unmet expectations for the day.

My painting at this point has become solid, and has crossed many barriers. Finally, after three to four weeks of a failed portrait, I finally got it right. Had I not succeeded in the proper aesthetic for the portrait the entire painting would have been ruined. Last week we had the 'aha' moment where we (Dallas, Nicole and I) decided that the dead space would be filled with upside down aloe plants, thus making my current pieces more cohesive. These renderings on canvas turned out better than expected.

So last night my objectives were to decide on the color of the two-dimensional skirt, work more on Erica's portrait in the piece, paint the upside down aloe plants while leaving a good portion of them in their 'drawn' form, and work on the dreaded arm of Madelaine.

Nicole helped me to decide that the color I had changed the skirt to last week was a bit too green and that this must be changed- also it lacked the brightness it had last week. This was something that I suspected, however, hesitated to change because well... it would be better if it were just 'done'. In changing the skirt, I knew I had to also work on the arm as the arm lays against the skirt, and the foreground must be done with the background. I came to the realization that the color needed to be changed anyway because I didn't work on the arm with the last *skirt color change*. That was really amateur of me. Deep sigh.

Making big changes, especially at this point, and with flesh is scary. I believe though that making big changes creates success rather than coming to a point of stagnation with your work. I made necessary changes to the arm, and consequently worked on the 2d skirt. I used a lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, white, and raw umber this time rather than black. I think I also used a naples yellow, and some added other mixes from my palette. The hand however now has problems. In the end I couldn't face the painting. I looked to Nicole and asked if it was done, hoping that it was just that I had looked at the hand too long. Unfortunately, she thought it was not done, and looked a little to dark, and little too strange. She told me to lighten a middle finger, and something else. I haphazardly threw some light colored paint onto the spots she pointed out hoping these random, spontaneous brush strokes would miraculously change things. They didn't. We laughed as I turned for approval with wide eyes right after I made them.

I decided that I would pray to the art gods for the right answer on what I should do regarding this hand issue. That seemed to work for the portrait I had so much trouble with. I noted though, that the art gods are much slower than I would like for them to be when it comes to getting from good to beautiful.