Portrait

I've been working on my self portrait lately. I can't say it's been going terribly well. Every time I set out to work on it I'm hit by an overwhelming desire to move everything, i.e. change the position of the head, the hands, the shoulders, etc. And I've yielded to the desire, starting each day as if from scratch. I like to believe that it was at least a good exercise along the way. For a while it seemed I was inadvertently channelling Pontormo or Parmigianino, giving myself an absurdly long neck. I also toyed with poses that left my hands out of the frame, as hands are hard enough to paint when they're being held still and not in constant motion. I've decided, however, to stick out the current pose, as the realization that this painting could very well continue forever has sunk in. It has a long way to go yet, but hopefully, now that I've stopped changing things around, it may progress at a normal rate.

So here it is, version five-hundred million, give or take:

Next session I tackle the hands.

Unintended variations

I know I haven't posted in awhile. Truth be told, I've hardly painted in as much time. There have been various things demanding my time instead, and I gave it to them, because they were more important, but I wish I had had more time to paint. This blog is very much intended to be about my painting, to give an inside view of it, to show my processes, to answer questions as to the paintings' evolution and perhaps to provide a more inclusive biography than what can be fit into an artist's statement. It was not intended to be about my personal life beyond what is relevant to my work, so imagine my surprise in discovering just how wrapped up my painting is in my personal life. I now expect an artist who can compartmentalize the two is creating soulless art; if one removes the experiences, character, thoughts, or emotions of the artist from the equation, surely we might as well have computers do the work for us. But I'm being tangential in my ramblings. All the preamble was merely an introduction to a few updates on my self portrait, which is going rather peculiarly, and rather poorly. My personal life has been complicated lately, and it seems I'm hard pressed to keep this from showing up in a painting, much less a self portrait. But I promised I'd continue to post it, if only to shame myself into putting the work in to pull a decent painting out of it in the end. So here goes:

This is the stage I left it weeks ago, having put in another day after the image in the last post:

This is what happened three weeks later when I got back to the painting and decided the original was boring:

And this is maybe an hour later when I decided I'd actually prefer to be a Hindu God:

And this is where I left off, having decided I look silly without my glasses, even when I hardly resemble myself:

Any day now I intend to stick with a pose and get the drawing down correctly. I keep telling myself it's all good exercise, which I do know to be true. But we finally, at long last, have warm weather here, which increases my ability to deal with life like no other factor, so I expect I can stop taking things out on my paintings. Hurrah for summer.

Glorious imperfection

I started a self portrait the other day, and it was fabulous. The painting of a portrait, that is, rather than the painting itself. I've been working on still life after still life for so long now, I was dying to work on something else. And as hiring a model isn't in the cards for me just now, I went for the self portrait. I was so excited to be working on a figure again, however, I neatly skipped over most of the requisite beginning stages. That is to say, I started full-out painting without ever having solidified the drawing. Day two will be a headache of cursing my own impatience and trying to rework the drawing. C'est la vie. I also have a decided reluctance to show my in-progress paintings, or even the finished work for that matter, when they contain people. And as I'm very much in favor of ridding myself of irrational fears, such as the fear that the painting may be such a terrible failure I'll lose the ability to paint forever, I'm making myself post the following image, in all its glorious imperfection.

Block in of a self portrait:

Works in Progress and an Exhibition

The last few days in the studio have been spent working on pieces I've already posted. I painted the goldfish in the bowl of my juggler, as well as working on the rest of the painting. It's getting closer to being finished. Here's its in progress image:

I also worked on my new Sebbie painting, although it's barely beyond block in stage. Here's that one:

Today I also found out two of my paintings have been accepted into the National Small Oil Painting Exhibition 2010, held at the Wichita Center for the Arts. The exhibition opens September 10th, you should go! The following paintings will be there:

"Sebbie and the Small Horse"

"The Magnifying Glass"

Fish studies

I finally adopted a goldfish! I imagine most goldfish won't hold still for portraits, but I seem to have adopted a particularly hyper one. I've named him Ruthie. Here are studies I've done of him so far:

And some close ups:

My juggler will finally get fish in his bowl!

Getting there

I got in some work on my portrait today. The likeness is getting better. But I'm still short a goldfish.

Goldfish portraits

Yesterday I went to the fish store to adopt a fantailed goldfish. There must have been a run on goldfish right before I got there, though, because they only had gray ones left. And while the gray ones were very pretty, they wouldn't do for my painting. I am really excited about the fish because it should be really hard to paint, seeing as it won't hold still. The gold fish is for a portrait I'm working on which I seem determined to make as hard as possible on myself. Here is the in progress image:

There is, obviously, one of the many reference photos I have for this painting taped to the canvas. The goldfish, perhaps also obviously, go in the bowl on his head. I still have a very long way to go with this painting, not the least because the portrait doesn't quite look like the model yet. I'm hoping that by posting this in progress image, my perfectionist self will be goaded into working more diligently on the painting, so I can post a much better image soon.

Fish and chips

It was a very hot day in the studio today. I had sweat running down my back while standing still, more activity than that was out of the question. I worked more on my Sebbie painting, but as it looks more or less like it did in my last post, it doesn't need a new picture. I also spent a fair amount of time on a portrait I've been working on for months. I think I'm finding it so very difficult because I know the model so well, I always have an easier time getting a portrait on a stranger than a friend. But I'm determined to get it right, as this is a portrait I've wanted to do for years, ever since I met a man in Paris, by Montmartre, who was juggling with a large bowl of goldfish balanced on his head. At the time I was having a horrible day; I kept getting lost, which is something that happens to me so seldom, it shakes me up, especially in a city I know so well. And just when I was ready to cry, there was this man, with the goldfish, and everything seemed ok with the world again. I've placed him in Edinburgh, instead of Paris, and I've yet to adopt the goldfish I need to finish the painting, but I'd determined to finish the painting by the end of the summer.

I also have been stretching the studies I did in Alaska. It's easier to travel with unstretched canvases, so I'm stretching them now. Unfortunately, the art supply store has been out of ten inch stretcher bars since I've gotten back and I need a fair number. At least it's too hot to want to stretch more canvases just now anyway. Here's my collection of 'to be stretched's:

The small ones are all from Alaska, the big one is an old, unfinished painting I found while going through things in my studio. I thought I might have a go at finishing it, maybe. Maybe not, I'm much more excited to do some larger paintings of Alaska.