Here's my latest lady painting.
She came out a little bit demonic, also more detailed and heavily worked than the last one. This is fine but I might even go back and do a simpler version, broader strokes and all that...
Don't forget my ebay stuff!
The Best of the Drawing Year at Christies
-
*Every year, I make a point of going to see The Royal Drawing School's "The
Best of the Drawing Year" at the annual exhibition at Christies at King
Street ...
11 hours ago
10 comments:
Wow! I burst out laughing in a good way with this one. Something so exuberant with the pose and expression! George Gross would be proud.
Thank you William!
Yes, it did all get a bit exuberant.
I think I might add all the nice comments I got on myspace to the text of this one...
(I'll move the myspace comments to the comments, since they're clogging things up a bit....)
For those of you without the benefit of myspace, here are some of the comments my lady received over there:
yes very evil, but very exciting and skillfully done. You are very talented...looks like my girlfriend when i wake her up in the morning!
Posted by Sunforged Studios on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 5:43 AM
She has been sick.....all the med's have swelled her so........she is befuddled as what to do??Leave her and next time work the eye brows down a little......other wise I think she will sell!!!She speak's for her self=no not evil just sick.......
Posted by jewel on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 5:47 AM
i see a cross between Bjork and Shelley Winters - maybe that's not a good thing, i dunno - as far as eveil or demonic goes, it is intense and there is madness in thoes eyes but your medium suggests a sort of deterrioration so i would associate the medium with the interior life of the figure. it all comes across as one for me, any changes would dampen the emotional content of the work - (it's always in the eyes, ya know)
Posted by protesta on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 6:26 AM
Well... thank you.
I wasn't unhappy with how she turned out, it was more that I became aware she could have gone in a different direction... that's quite exciting when you get to a point where you make a decision about taking a certain road when you know you have the control to steer her fate...
That's where the urge to paint multiple verions of the 'same' image comes from. The extract all those latent possiblities.
And it is more than just style or technical choices too. There are points at which the painting takes on its own life and its own mood.
So a perfect combination of the painting achiveing its own autonomous life/spirit, and conscious manual control is something to aim for... am I rambling now?
Posted by Chloe on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 6:54 AM
She could be called senga
Posted by Spinning Robot Foot Prince on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 6:58 AM
neat-o.
Posted by Quinlan on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 7:06 AM
I like it Chloe. She looks ready to eat whoever is painting her...and not slowly either. First she would slather them with Ranch dressing...she'd get a lot of it in her hair too
Posted by JOSH on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 7:42 AM
I like the big sensible bra.
Your paintings of women have that combination of the domestic and sexual that I love.
It's like sometimes when you wake up early when you have a day off and your girlfriend is getting ready for work you watch her from the bed, half dressed in her sensible and de-sexualising work clothes and half deliciously naked.
Not quite arousing, but it still fills you with a lovely feeling of being part of her private life. Of seeing behind the mask of public life, and even behind the other mask of personal life, which everyone wears even in a close relationship. For a moment there is no mask, only the true person revealed.
Posted by Topple on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 7:58 AM
Thanks John! I mean, Topple!
Are you going solo with the surname in an iconic Morrissey way?
I have excellently insightful friends.
Posted by Chloe on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 8:09 AM
wow!
Posted by jab on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 9:42 AM
I love your lady paintings. I'm always excited when you tell me you've got some soft ladies on the go. Also, I'm loving that sturdy bra.
Posted by Scott on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 11:08 AM
You know, really, she's kind of beautiful. First thing I thought was, "That's probably what Wife of Bath looked like."
Posted by The Puppet Head on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 6:33 PM
Hi Chloe, beautiful painting! Her face reminds me of the faces of the peasants Van Gogh used to paint - roughly molded, but there's something about that look on her face... I can't decide if she's just happy or if she's contemplating eating someone (in a good way!)
Thank you, Julie!
Yes, she took on a life of her own... she strayed beyond my discipline. I think it's true she may have some kind of primal flesh eating kind of thing happening.
When you're painting, do you work from models or photos, or does all this delightful imagery comes straight from your brain?
I love your sketches, too - sites like yours help get me motivated to do more myself.
Well... Mainly I do work from photos... (but not slavishly, shall we say). Which in some ways is not ideal, but I think the spirit or the life in a painting is something you experience and invest into it. It doesn't necessarily have to come from strapping yourself to a storm-tossed mast like Turner. Although that might be fun in its own way.
I confess that this lady came from freely available amateur soft porn... I like finding bits of innocence or something empathetic-looking amongst the sordidness. It's a readily available source of normal un-airbrushed female bodies. I've never met her, but I discovered that her name is Maria.
But maybe these aren't portraits exactly...
Thank you... I had a peek at your paintings earlier.. they have a gentle luminosity about them...
Chloe,
For some reason it never occurred to me to look to soft porn as a source for good figure studies; I may have to try that..
As to working from photos, I'm maybe a bit more pragmatic in my philosophy: if it works, and as long as you're not too slavishly devoted, go for it. The hard part for me is that slavish devotion bit :)
I once attended an art lecture/ show opening by Gregory Gillespie while I was in art school. He was asked about painting from photographs (which he frequently did), and his response was that as long as it was a good photo, why not? Someone else asked him about the color of blue he used as a background for some self-portraits; he said he mixed that shade, but that sometimes he used a color straight from the tube, if it was right. My drawing teacher was scandalized.
I guess my point is, whatever you use as a starting point, it's working wonderfully. I'm glad you commented at OC, because I think I could learn a lot from you.
Thank you, Julie, that's very kind.
I shall have to try to paint extra well to sure I'm worthy of being learned from.
The 'slavish devotion' IS a tricky thing. I think it's only in the past year I've really developed the confidence/ drawing skills to take my imagery in hand and manfully control it in picturespace, which is neither two dimensional or three dimensional, but somewhere between the two.... It is a subtle old business.
Amazing colors
Post a Comment