This week I decided to take a break, step away from the paintings on the easel, and do something for myself. This is a portrait miniature representative of traditional late eighteenth century style. It is watercolor on ivory (old piano key) with a sealing varnish of DaMar. The painting style does not model strictly after that taught at the Philadelphia academy but is vaguely reminiscent of regional influences. Of course the smiling countenance is purely this artist’s prerogative. The subject is my husband. Enjoy.

I have had a busy week and no time at the easel until today. Compounding this, sometimes it is hard to get going when I am distracted by all of the usual demands of the day to day still lurking in my mind. But I finally got down to work and some of the slight detail issues in the face are beginning to settle. I started to work on the hands a little today too.
Technically, it is dangerous to focus on one area of a painting and let others languish like I have been doing with the hands. Color palette can drift, detail can be different from area to area, the whole painting can loose continuity. Let’s hope I can avoid these pitfalls.
I hope you’re having fun…I am.

Not every day is fruitful. Not ever session spent at the easel is as fruitful as others. I worked on the face today and made a little progress forward and see a few things now I need to fix. Sometimes life pressures get in the way of faster progress but that is all part of the process too. Another day might be better.

I don’t always stop painting to post process but just take a quick picture with my phone and move on, causing several steps in one day. I also must admit I do not devote the whole day to the easel – much as I would love to. Instead, I paint a little and go clean my house a little because itis Saturday and the light is as good for dust bunnies as it is for painting. This is the second sitting and I decided to begin to add a little detail to the face. Not only does this start to settle the real size of the flat shapes, but it helps me relax and plan where it needs to go next. Once the afternoon light forces me to stop feeling guilty about the dusting I haven’t finished I will probably do a third session today and will post progress. I hope you’re having fun watching.

The composition was feeling pretty off so I thought I would look at what I could do to unite the two islands of warmth, the face and the hands. I decided that what I needed to do is pull them together with angles and geography – meaning make the figure hunch over a little closer to pull the pieces closer. This also meant I needed to work on the scale or proportional relationship between the two. I am actually oversize now on the hands but that’s what ‘working’ on a painting is all about.

This phase is scarey because it is a matter of pushing back the recessed and dark areas. With a painting that is set in the dark, that pretty much is all of it. These step photos may be boring but I want to see how it changes and these process pictures will be interesting for me too. It’s documentation. It’s a bit daunting to say the least.

Planning the layout for a canvas is one of the most important elements of what makes a painting work and starting a painting without a fair idea, a road-map of sorts, is a huge gamble. Most great artists do a series of preliminary drawings before ever touching paint. I have rarely done that and it is sometimes what makes my work fail during process, I suppose.
I do paint continually in my head and often have a fair notion of what I intend to do but I re-evaluate and adjust as I go. Most paintings start with a photograph (no guarantee of good layout) and the final look may drift far from where it started. Hard telling where this layout will need to go with so few elements to use.

The painting I started is of my husband, Ray, and there is no doubt that by the time I have completed it, I will have faced my lighting challenge. I know what I want to do but don’t know how to get there so this will be a tough one.
IF you are inclined to watch problem solving on canvas at its most agonizingly transparent, check back and feel free to offer comments from the peanut gallery.
Wheeee!