my art

Painting for September 8

| emmapittson
30paintings-no-3
Face Study no.3 – acrylic on panel, 6″ x 6″.  For Sale: $150 USD

I felt that yesterday’s painting was a bit of a disaster, so I decided to give it a second shot – and make it just as fussy and smooth as I originally wanted it to be.  I definitely like this one a LOT more, but it took wa-a-ay too much time to complete.  If I’m going to keep up the Challenge, I’ll have to develop a faster working method!

What I’m happy with:

  • You want the honest truth?  I’m happy with almost all of it!   I tried really hard not to  stray too far from the reference image, and I think it came out alright!

What I’m less happy with:

  • lack of unified paint texture.  Sometimes I gooped it on and it looks opaque, sometimes it looks watercolour-y.  It’s the mark of an amateur, so… gotta work on that.

What I learned with this painting:

  • too much Titanium White can tip a painting’s flesh tones over into “zombie” territory pretty quickly.  Proceed with caution!
  • as much as I enjoy working with a painting propped up in my lap, all that sitting allows me to forget to take a step back every now and then, and that is dangerous!

My Interior Monologue While Painting – a play in three acts:

me: Ok!  Enough of this stylistic garbage!  I’m going to paint the way I want to paint and prove to myself that I can DO THIS!  [begins painting]

me (halfway through): Oh God!  This is terrible!  I can’t paint AT ALL! [keeps painting]

me (holding my precious new bundle of painting joy):  Hunh.  That wasn’t so bad.  Ok, maybe I *can* do this after all.  In fact, I’m going to do it all again tomorrow!! [promptly forgets all about painting woes until the next day]

 

 

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Painting for September 7

| emmapittson
30paintings-no-2
Face Study no.2 – acrylic on panel

Here is my painting for September 7th – Day 7 (well, for me, it’s Day 2) of the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge.

What I’m happy with:

  • pretty much everything on the right side.  Those pale colours with that thin outline really make me hum with satisfaction.
  • the white highlights.  SO much easier to do on any surface that is NOT paper.

What I’m less happy with:

  • pretty much everything on the left side.  The reference image is very calm, and I somehow made her look like she walked away from a bad fistfight (“you should see the OTHER guy!”).

What I’ve learned so far:

  • because I have practically zero training in painting (and this despite the fact that I have a Fine Arts Degree – chew upon that, alma mater!), I’m a lot less comfortable making paintings that are, I dunno… paint forward?  I forced myself to use the biggest brushes possible for as long as possible on this tiny panel, but I was happiest when I could take out the detail brush, or when I could apply the paint as if I was drawing.
  • Slow-Dri Blending Gel really works.  Bless you, Liquitex.

What was going through my mind practically all the way through:

  • I suck at painting
  • y’know, if I did this with Photoshop, it would come out AMAZING

See you tomorrow!

 

The “30 paintings in 30 days” challenge

| emmapittson
30paintings-no-1
Face Study no.1 – acrylic on paper.

I swear to you that I am not crazy – I’m just at a serious stand-still when it comes to my art!  I need a decisive kick in the pants, so against my better judgement, I’ve decided to participate in Leslie Saeta’s “30 Paintings in 30 Days” challenge!

I’m just kidding – cranking out a painting a day is actually a really good idea.  I did that for a week last winter and I ended up learning so much (and bonus! I had 5 beautiful landscape paintings by the end of it).  I talk a big talk about how I want to be a serious artist, but that’s never going to happen if I can’t even decide on what I want to paint, or if I lack the skills to get those paintings onto canvas.  Thirty days of face studies should not only bring my skill level up to something acceptable, but also help me to determine if painting the figure is what I want to focus on at all.

Here we go….!

Study – Sebastien Chabal – Take2

| emmapittson

Sebastien Chabal2 v2

What can I say?  This guy has a really interesting face, and since my grand plans for a Fine Art career are on hold for the moment, I might as well indulge in some studies.  That being said, this is also a perfect example of a drawing where I didn’t really decide on a plan of action before sitting down to draw.  By that, I mean: is my intention to make a quick values study (like the first one), or do I want to REALLY get into every single line and pore and make this as realistic as I can (and by the way, if you’re going to do that, do yourself a favour and begin with a high-res reference image.  Don’t try to make something out of nothing, like I did here).  Because I changed my mind as the drawing went along, I feel like it’s neither as photo-realistic as I want to be, nor is it as breezy and fresh as the first drawing.  It’s just kinda… “neither here, nor there”.

Back to work!