Italian Paintings/ Italian Baby

This is sort of the same stricken expression as the dog in the previous painting. I once had a student (You know who you are!) who made a fabulous baby painting, and the baby was really mad. I coveted it! She wouldn't let me have it though. The parents got it, and they didn't appreciate it adequately, so sad.

I did quick drawings in oil for this several times and made an effort to dismiss my usual accumulating tension. I tried to draw for the pleasure of it, and wiped each one. Then I began painting with the same goal, to enjoy it passage by passage and not worry (about the one million things going wonky or wrong or muddy, I should have gone to secretarial school, etc.) I also tried to think about the structure of the head only and not require a likeness. I  began with the nose first, the relationship of the nose to the eye sockets. I'm hoping this will help me be in charge of the size of my images, in this case the head in relations to my canvas. My default mode is to make it life sized, so the longer I work the bigger the entire thing becomes. This time I was able to keep it all within my boundaries. I worked this too long but I did get the whole head in and 8x6 canvas without too much suffering. I read somewhere that the first relationship to establish is the nose to the eyes, then everything else can fall into its relative place, and it works!

Mugshot 73: Baby 3

On the last two babies I used a winsor red/viridian combination for the basic dark out of which I worked all the other flesh tones. In this one I used a purple/yellow combination just to see what it would look like. Pretty much the same overall, but I kept all the colors in the purple/yellow range for continuity. Also used a paler background this time to see if the color in the face is stronger (not so much) and to see what the softer color overall looks like.  I think still the color could be stronger in the skin, more pigment.  There is SO MUCH gray, a million pearly grays.  I think more experimenting...

Mugshot 72: Baby 3

Same deal with this one, fast and as direct as I could make it.  I was more aware in this one of the vast and subtle range of half tones -- that if I could identify the tone that ties the dark and light together and then get that patch of paint in the right place, the form will bend. Just that there are so many half tones. And half/half tones. These last two babies were less than 10 minutes old.

Mugshot 71: ( Baby 2)

This was quicker and more fun and resulted in more muscular painting.  It takes the pwessure off if I think I am going to do it fast and have fun with it, even if it's no fun and I get stuck.  Also, I was looking for a way to reduce the sweetness - I mean not to have it be sentimental.  Thus, the black.  But it is what it is, a sweet newborn.