Taking a bit of a departure from painting what's beneath my surface, I decided that I'm going to do a series of paintings from a lighter side. This is a piece that I'm going to put into a group show next month. Black women's natural hair has grown to be a topic in regular rotation in at least the last 10 years or so, and it's something that I certainly feel connected to. So I think I'm going to enter the foray artistically with my interpretations of celebrating natural black hair and its beauty. I'm looking forward to doing more of these paintings because this one was a lot of fun to create. I was able to be loose here, and just focus on making it look good and not having it mean anything much more than that. It's a mental and emotional respite that I realized that I'm in need of these days.I have at least one more painting that I'd like to crank out before I move to my new place and start working on the new series. It's going to prove to be a difficult task because there have been so many distractions going on in life these days! Going to do my best to push through it though. Crossing my fingers that within the next two blog posts will be that one painting, so stay tuned.
A New Self-Portrait
Finally wrapped up an older painting then started a new self-portrait over the weekend. This one I'm hoping to enter into a portrait competition. It's probably way too soon for me to think about such things, and there's a huge possibility that I won't even place, but I'm going to go for it anyway. Because why not? What the hell else do I have going on? With this project in the mix, it looks like I'll be finishing the year on a strong note.There's definitely a story and emotion behind this piece, and I'll get more into it as I get closer to finishing it. Whenever I do self-portraits there's always a weird struggle through it. I know they're SUPPOSED to look like me, but I always find something off about them no matter how well I do. It's probably not even a big deal and I'm not being self-critical about my skill or my looks, I just think it's strange to be staring at myself on canvas sometimes. Which is probably weird for me to admit since I pull so much from myself in most, if not all, of my personal work and I'm extremely comfortable with doing that.At any rate, I thought it was still worth sharing the latest portrait at this stage since I brought the sketch to a decent stopping point. I have to put it on hold for a little bit so I can get to a smaller piece that I will be putting in a group show next month, so be on the lookout for a post on that too. It seems like there is so much that I have to juggle these days and it's hard to turn down new opportunities to show work and connect with other artists and art lovers. On top of a fluctuating painting schedule, I'm preparing for a mini vacation and a move next month. How I'm going to stay productive through all of that, I'm not really sure...
Sean Cheetham Workshop at BACAA – Final Recap
Ok so I'm back home now and can give you my final thoughts about the workshop I took at BACAA under painter, Sean Cheetham. Here is where I started:
And here is my "finished" piece:
When I look at this I have a few thoughts. I can see things that I could've done better, mostly with the drawing and some of the darker colors. I couldn't quite get the "black" that I wanted to get, at least, not until much later in the painting and by then I couldn't really get it to "stick". I definitely don't think that I captured a great likeness of the model either. My painting of her looks rough, but the model was actually very pretty. I don't see a pretty woman in my painting! There are also a few edges that are too harsh that I just couldn't get to soften up like I wanted. And so on.However, I also see a few things that I do think are successful. I think my colors make sense, for the most part. I was able to control my urges to be more expressive with brushstrokes and paint, so basically this is a more subdued approach than I'm used to as of late. I'll call that a success! Even though the likeness was way off, I think what is there isn't too bad. Most of what I did "makes sense" even though it's not completely accurate. I also like that the highlights of the red hair was just scratches I made with the end of the paintbrush. Nothing really innovative, but I liked it! I don't think anyone else did anything like that in the class. I guess I couldn't keep myself completely subdued after all.So what have I been able to take away from this experience? I think I can say that being able to point out successful elements in something I've created is progress for me. As I'm sure you know the old adage of being "your own worst critic", I probably would've just focused on the negative parts had this been a couple of years ago. So it feels good to be able to be constructive and honest about my work, to know what works (and what doesn't) and be able to explain why. I think this class also showed me that I probably need to draw/sketch more, just to keep my observational skills at a respectable level. It was good for me to get out of my painting comfort zone for a bit with the approach and color palette. It was certainly a challenge. I don't think that I will stick with Sean's color palette for my personal work, but I do want to practice more with it. Who knows, it could come in handy somewhere down the line. All in all, I think the class was worth it and I would definitely recommend taking a workshop taught by Sean and/or with BACAA. But now, back to the lab for my own work.