Nude Study Two

Another meeting of the painting group last night and I painted hard and fast and didn't get home till 10:30. No juice to paint today, so I am posting the best of the studies. These are 30 minutes long and I am using Jennifer Balkan's formula: 3 generous batches of paint, a warm dark, a cool mid tone, and warm light; with burnt umber quickly lay in only a gestural form of the body and then the darks, followed by mid tone and light, finishing with restrained use of highlights if any. I got 3 ok studies and 1 wiper, not too bad for the end of a long day. It's so amazing and riveting to paint or draw from life -- total concentration and no thinking, you just have to keep your energy up and your concentration skewered to the model.

Mugshot Twenty One

I'm thinking of bumping up to 10 inches square. This guy had a swan's neck...but I had to abbreviate it because I wanted to get that black net top in there. My painting self wants to work bigger and my thinking self wants to learn how to get it all in no matter what the size.

Mugshot Twenty

This guy was so pink.

Mugshot Nineteen

Lots of chin.

Mugshot Eighteen

I painted this six times, the first 3 I didn't post. She had these red rimmed thyroidal eyes that I just couldn't get down and this pale yellowish translucent skin. These mugshot people aren't healthy for the most part. And I want to say only once without defensiveness, that it is hard to get it all when jailbase.com is repeated every inch across the faces, because often the type will cover a tricky shadow at the corner of the mouth or eye and it can't be seen clearly. Not that I'm whining. But the more I couldn't get it, the more determined I was to keep at it. The top one is good enough for now, I can't stand to look at it any more. As they say, the line is oh so thin between the heroic and the pitiful.

Thank you everyone for such nice comments on the last study.

Nude Study

I painted a mugshot today but it turned on me in the end and I had to wipe it. Will try tomorrow. Today I am posting a study I did Monday night in a painting group. We have a model and do 4 30 minute poses. At the end of the session we did a quick 15 minute pose (this one) and I was able to get it down in broad strokes with the parts in the right place and the values pretty much ok. I feel encouraged because I see that I am learning to condense visual info faster and establish the form without too much thinking. I just want the image to go from my eye to my hand without cerebral detour.

Mug 17

This boy was completely magnificent. His skin! There was every color in it and they were all practically the same value. Very interesting painting experience.

I don't know the reason for this, but the women in the mugshot sites routinely have the thinnest eyebrows I have ever seen. It would be interesting to hear what a sociologist has to say about that, what conclusion could be drawn. I have a feeling it is heartbreaking.

Mug 15

I painted this guy yesterday and it was a bust, but he is so beautiful I wanted to try to get him down if possible. It helped to have done him once before because my observation was much more acute. Also, I worked with a big hog bristle brush and tried to be economical in my description and to stop before that poisonous period that I often have at the end of the painting where I am trying to fix and smooth things (AAAAUGH!). I did drop it face down outside, though, so then I did have to go back and fix things, but it is good enough and much better than yesterday's painting.

Brianna's Brother

This is Brianna's tag along brother. His mouth was really that red. Tomorrow it is back to the criminals. Alleged criminals.

Brianna,

This is a mugshot of my neighbor's grandchild. I like this kid a lot, she is smart and really present and interested when you talk to her.

Thanks everybody for your very upbeat comments on the banner project painting, I really appreciate it!

Purifying Mask/Banner

This painting is for a banner project for the city of Georgetown, Texas. For the last couple of years they have invited artists to design banners, then they are printed and hung through out the town. They hang em high, as I remember, maybe from lamp posts, and the finished piece is 2 feet by 4 feet.

Challenge List

I have been tagged by Lorraine Shirkus to list paintings in the following categories. It was a great exercise to go back through the work and evaluate it more objectively than you can right after you finish one.

Thanks, Lorraine!

This painting was the most beautiful, in a traditional way. Pansies in the Mirror, 6 inches square.

This was the most popular painting with the most responses. Radish Finale, 10 inches square

This is supposed to be the most controversial category, but I don't think I have done anything controversial for which I am very sorry. So I have altered it to be The Most Fun. This was fun because I wrote a Haiku for it and everyone left comments in Haiku. Hilarious. Belligerent Eclair, 6 inches square

This is the painting that might have been the most helpful. I am a little cloudy on this category.

I figure it must mean helpful to others. It is the last in a series of 10 paintings of this damned plastic bowl with an impossible curving square lip. Plastic Bowl Number 10, 8x6 inches.

This is the painting whose success surprised me. There were lots of encouraging and appreciative comments. Blue Green Still Life, 6 inches square

This is the painting that didn't get the attention it deserved. I was very proud that it carried itself abstractly, realistically and colorifically. I know that's not a word, but you know what I mean. Light Socket and Pink Box, 6 inches square

This is the painting I'm the most proud of: The Nose, 8x6 inches

Mug Fourteen

This guy's hair was truly this big.

Mug Thirteen

This guy had such an unbelievably long face it was quite challenging to jam him into an 8 inch square. Since my own proportions are all short and compact, I naturally see things that way and had to keep checking the measurements and then make him longer and longer. He must have been 7 feet I figure.

Mug Twelve

I rarely see the crime listed with the mugshot, but this time I went to a criminal speciality, gang crimes, and found this guy. He was so serene, like a Hindu god. The background he came with was a deep cobalt blue which I loved and intended to use, but I did a yellow wash on the panel before I started and then I was feeling he needed a sort of religious golden surface behind him, to emphasize his perfect equilibrium.

Mug Shot 11

In this one I used a huge flat brush for the most part, with some effort to find larger planes of color and get that down in minimum stokes. I sort of forgot my intention as I worked, but it was a good beginning. These mug shots are great for practice -- maybe like running sprints, not that I have ever run one, but I think it might help mesh all the necessary skills.

Mug 10

This girl was cadaver pale. I actually got too much color in here, it was mousy grays everywhere. I will have another go at her soon.