In today’s Artist Talk, it’s time for a throwback. I did some weird-ass youtube videos on this a long while back but we gone talk about it again here.
I woke up one morning and in my pool of random first thoughts, this one painting came up. It was a piece that I did several years ago at a figure painting workshop hosted by the prestigious Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia. Back when I was a young pup (my early-20s) beginning to define my artistic direction, my goal was to excel in contemporary realist figure painting. If you can believe it. Looking back on it now, this might have been the piece that made me reconsider that path, because that was probably the most difficult experience I’ve ever had in a classroom environment. I don’t find myself getting frustrated too easily, but this shit made me cry after class for 2 nights in a row.
There were a few things that came together about this piece that broke me down. First, the Anders Zorn palette. It’s a very limited color palette using only yellow ochre, ivory black, cadmium red and titanium white…Yeahhh just go ‘head and remove both my arms and my eyeballs.
Though on the one hand, I appreciated the challenge that it presented to me at the time, I cringe every time I think about it. It felt like very little room for expression at all. Second, because this style of painting requires exceptional observational skills and execution, a lot is expected from the students. The instructors are highly accomplished professionals and I could tell that they were trying to push me to the next level. BUT, that nudging, through no fault of their own, is also what made me feel like shit because I just could not get it “right” despite how much they were trying to help me. No matter what I thought I was doing the painting was still…off. It bothered me to no end! My hands were just not painting what I was seeing and I became so, so defeated. And I cried. Pitifully. Right into my Tommy DiNic’s roast pork sandwich, for 2 nights in a row.
“Face: terrible
Proportions: weird
Shadows: harsh
Color: blah”
In hindsight, I’m more okay with how it turned out than I used to be. I understand that it was only for practice. There are some successful areas, and there are some some parts I wish I could’ve done better. Ultimately, I chose to view it as a tough lesson in going easier on myself when it comes to participating in these workshops. It was also a pivotal moment in my development because this was the last project before becoming inspired to move into the style in which I paint to this day. So at least SOMEthing really good came out of this particular struggle. Allegedly.
I'm not going to front on here, I was very nervous about this one.I usually only work with the human figure, and occasionally flowers, so when I was asked to paint a friend's beloved pet I tightened up. A pet portrait isn't something that people take lightly! Just like a person, you have to be able to capture the essence and personality when depicting an animal. And not just any "animal," a pet. This is someone's family member. You can't let them down! At the same time, I didn't want to let my inexperience and apprehension deter me from a new challenge and opportunity. Plus it's pretty flattering to be asked to produce a piece of artwork for someone to have. So of course, I accepted.I think my main concern with it was the drawing aspect of the piece. I don't spend time drawing animals at all, so I really didn't know where to start and I was afraid that whatever I did wouldn't look too much like a dog - much less a GOOD one. I was given a few photo references to work from so that was super helpful. Since I've also met the subject, Sheela, I was familiar with her temperament so that helped me when deciding colors and posing to try to give the viewer a feeling of who Sheela is. Here's a little bit of how this piece progressed:
Once I was able to sketch something that looked a lot like Sheela, I felt pretty good. I just need a really good start, because the rest of the painting process is nothing but adjustments as you go and that doesn't bother me too much.
So at this point there's still a lot of decision-making to be done. You don't want the whites to be too white, but muddiness must also be avoided. I still had a lot of terrain to cover on the rest of the head, because there no light/dark values to establish shape and lighting.
