Back into harness.
 

I was sort of in a funk for the last few months and with modern chemistry, a scholarship to Paul Leveille and pending commissions, I had a good week, starting up again on Saturday, in open studio.

The gentleman was first, oil approx. 18x16 with a nice and interesting background.

The young lady I just brought home, 20x16 pastel on suede board.

I just feel much better now and think I will work on my watercolor from life in the workshop. I don't know how to get the gutsy stuff in watercolor from life. I am sure it will be fun.

Debra,

Glad to see you back, in or out of harness, with these two strong paintings.

I can't wait to see what you do with the watercolor from life. That medium has always bedeviled me.

Hi Debra -

Thank God for modern chemistry....I'm needing a readjustment on the thyroid pills, so I have an inkling of what you mean.

Anyway, I love the brute force-feeling from the first picture. Those strong planes ae great! Your second is lovely too. I've always admired your beautiful use of color.

These two have a very different feel to me compared to other works I have seen of yours. Are you heading in a different direction artistically?

Thank you both!
Julia, the truth about these two pieces were I just SHOWED UP. I try to make a project of every open studio. There are a limited number of models any season and I sometimes feel that I have them memorized so I go in with some mental challenge... Like: "use silver point and underdraw a sketch for an oil" "limit my palette" "Do full body"... just a strong goal and a familiar face. These two are both new to me so I just picked the medium and took what I had. The gentleman was on a scrubbed out piece of canvas that had a lot of raw sienna undertone. That was all I did to prep. When I got there I tried hard to work on the sense of positive and negative shapes. I just pulled out the brush and stopped when the buzzer went off!

The woman was because I had just done a really rewarding animal portrait, I will put below, and decided I had been doing too much fur so I thought I would try my suede board again. I don't like to work on the deeper shades because they are very unstable. They are made as mats so the back is acid balance, but the front is a nice soft fur and the pigment is VERY VERY iffy! I took one of my darker to middle tones with the only clue being this woman was Native American.... Which I think may have been misdiagnosed at the front desk, because those eyes sure look from the other side of the world!!! Green as a complement for redder skin tones.

I will say, I just detached my brain. I was aware that I didn't measure ANYTHING until I got home, just tried HARD to observe and paint what I saw. It was fun working my eyes to that degree. She is about 10% larger than life and I see a sense of smooth planes that I never would have expected from my start! I will honestly say, I was just channeling these. It was infinitely relaxing and enjoyable! I had not done much in a few months and it was making me nuts!!!! Not sure if nuts was the cause or result of not painting, but I am back to normal in spite of the real world stressers.

Hope the class will push my watercolor into line and let me jump into the "flow" there too.