working on it

Sometimes painting is easy, other times it is difficult.  

A year ago I began a new series of paintings.  The first stages involved layering several blind colour sketches on each of about a dozen stretched canvases.  I'd been making blind drawings in a sketchbook and had decided to try translating the technique on a larger scale.

Here is one of the "beginnings"

it languished for some months

but then I worked on it again

and now it looks like this.

I am not sure whether it is now a better painting; it is certainly a different painting than it was.  Sometimes after I work over a painting I feel a sort of nostalgia for its youth, so to speak, but it is never possible to go back.

I also worked on this painting a tiny bit

whose orientation is still unclear

and I'm calling it finished for now.

Please feel free to use your imagination to see various tonalities of reds & oranges... which my camera unfortunately does not differentiate between very well!  :)

sometimes you have to be ruthless

Sometimes you just have to be ruthless in order to get to the good stuff.

first incarnation

wiped, begin again

finally, the good stuff

I really like like the way this portrait turned out, despite some anatomical imperfections.  Very glad I wiped it halfway through.

To my amazement, the whole endeavour took only 1h 15m.  I get that my drawings are done very fast, usually about 20-30 minutes in my 9x12 sketchbook with watermedia...  but this was an oil portrait, and the first I'd done in a very long time.

Must've been an exceptionally good model.

:)

portraits and portraits

Today I spent the day in Black Diamond, AB, hanging out at Bluerock Gallery and exploring various parts of the town and environs.  During my travels I made some portraits.  

Here they are, more-or-less in the order they appeared:

And in the newest sketchbook, 300gsm toned grey paper which was very smooth and did not take the watermedia too easily but nevertheless was enjoyable to work in:

It was nice to get out of the city for the day.