Sylvia, 14x18

It's wet here.  We live in a rainforest....well, pretty near one.  During the winter rains a group of us go indoors and paint people.   A few weeks ago, this dedicated plein air painter gave up on the outdoors long enough to come and sit for us. 

This painting was, for two reasons, an interesting learning experience.....well, they all are, aren't they?

The first reason was that I drew only three or four placement lines before beginning to paint.  A line to describe the top of the legs, one for the arm she is leaning on and two lines forming a teepee where her head and torso went.  And then it was off into paint, beginning with the hair and dark of the cloth and moving into the face.  There is another painting under this one that was a reddish kind of portrait.  You can see parts showing through and helping with the 'glow'.

The second thing that was interesting and a challenge was carving a likeness out of a head that is about an inch and a quarter big....or small.  Trying to only use bits of unblended paint when working I found that the slightest error in stroke placement meant losing the image of Sylvia. 

There are always things I would change in a painting but, overall, I like this piece for the color relationships and brushwork.

Rest of the Clowns, 6x6

Do Clowns creep you out?   The comments that have come through have been that, although people like the paintings, they find the clowns unsettling and a bit scary.  Come to think of it all the comments like that are from women.

James Gurney, author of Dinotopia, had an interesting post yesterday with an image that I find unsettling....maybe this is what people are responding to.  Like the horror movies with clowns, are these the images we have unconsciously grown up with?

Interesting.  I always thought clowns were just fun....oh, well, there was that old Alfred Hitchcock movie....

Anyway.  Here are the other two clowns and we can be done with them.  They were fun to paint. Sweet dreams.....

Whale Watcher, 10x12

Anders Zorn, the John Singer Sargeant of Sweden, used a limited palette of colors often referred to as the 'Zorn Palette'.  That palette was just black, white, a yellow and a red....but, in truth, he did use more colors, just not very many.  Known not only for his oils but also for his etchings and watercolors, he is a Scandinavian legend.  Zorn, Sargeant, Sorolla and Mancini were powerhouse painters from the turn of the last century.

When I find my portraits slipping in color relations I'll often go back to his palette to get re-anchored, and that's what I'm doing here.  I love this guys lower lip and actually reduced how much it stuck out because it looked like a mistake when painted accurately.  

Try his palette.  When you do, notice how you can actually get lavenders and greens out of just those pigments.

Camden Kids

I wish I had taken the time on this trip to draw more people. Just a few lines and a bit of tone can suggest so much. These two were sitting on a stone wall overlooking a spillway. The cormorants sitting on the rock were waiting for a meal to show up. There is a visual triangle formed between her dark hair, the dark of the birds and the shadow accent of the rock that moves the eye around the work. Simple, quick and all it takes to put me back in that moment.