Busyness

I've been very busy lately. I have, in my head, the deadline of May 1st for a fair amount of work (the actual deadlines are a bit later, but I want to be done early, and have wiggle room,) and, accordingly, I've been spending most of my time working on those pieces. My inspiration, however, has a bit of a short attention span, so I've been letting it wander to the occasional figure or flower study before dragging it back to the other. 

Here are the latest Sebbie paintings, still in progress. They've been an adventure for a couple reasons. One, they are being painted using the same set up, but from different angles and with different lighting--something I've never tried before. Two, both are requiring a fair amount of painting from memory. In the first one, in the actual set up, there is a little toy deer standing in front of Mr. Sebbie, so I've been doing a fair amount of bobbing and weaving to see what I need to see. In the second one, to get the lighting on the set up as I want, I can't see the colors on the painting properly. I'm sure I could play around with lightbulbs, screens, etc., but I haven't, so the result is that the painting I'm doing with the lighting correct on the set up is more in the manner of taking notes, and the real painting of the painting I'm doing when the light is completely wrong, using my notes, what I remember of the light impression, and the incorrectly lit objects as placement reference. It's kind of awesomely fun, and I'm excited to try some nocturnal landscapes using the same approach. So here they are, neither are finished yet, but you get the idea:

Sebbie:

Sebbie at the Shadow Puppet Theatre:

And here is the work my inspiration's attention span would rather I be working on. (I actually think it's more a matter of my inspiration being stubborn and immediately disliking, or pretending to dislike, anything it's told it has to do--it may take after the more adolescent aspects of my personality.) I would like to work on them more, as they are they're still rough studies, but they'll have to wait until the other work is done.  

I've always done standing or, occasionally, seated, nudes, reclining is new for me.

And some more ornithogalum, quick study: