Stage 2: Don't hate yourself

Alright so I lied. This is not actually stage 2. It is more like stage 2 1/2. I skipped stage 2 because I hate stage 2. It is the time in the painting where I feel like everything has gone wrong; the proportions have gotten off, the colours are not as vibrant as I want them to be, muddy even, and the likeness is pretty much gone. I painted over his nose and mouth twice before I got to where I could take a break. I hate leaving a painting in a state I am not okay with. Basically I feel like throwing the thing at the wall at this point.

Anyhow, this stage was a lot better. I remembered that I can actually use linseed oil and it makes everything easier as long as you don't use too much. I know, day one stuff, but after not painting for so long I had sort of forgotten.

At this stage I start to really have fun with colour. I read somewhere that I should lay out my pallet in the same way every single time I paint so that mixing will be more intuitive. I had started doing this when I was living in Los Angeles and it does help I think. I am not 100% sure yet.

There are certain colours I always use to make certain skin tones and shadows. I find that a mixture of two certain blues and one yellow makes a great blue-green for cooler tones without looking totally unreal. I suppose the idea of 'unreal' is pretty subjective. I use a lot of crazy colours that some would call ---- oh I forget the art school word for it, but they are not really 'accurate' according to most. In a way I agree but not fully; when I look at a person's skin I really do see all these colours. I see the blues and greens and purples and vermillion and yellow. It is there. Plain for the eye to see. Or maybe I am insane. Either way I like using a lot of colour. It makes the image seem more alive than if I stuck to traditional peaches, sepias, umbers and pinks. I did not always see these colours. I really feel like I had to learn to see them. I really should give credit to one of my painting teachers for this; Kerry Kim at Sheridan College. He really emphasized feeling the weight, form and volume of the thing you were painting. He also had us do some great experiments with reflected light. I used to use gouache exclusively back then...wow...yeah maybe I am insane.





Sorry the photos are so blurry. I wish I had a tripod.

So there it is. Sort of step 2. I put in big chunks of bright colour. Sometimes I think I take the colour too far and am not sure how I am going to tone it down and unify it. That is about what I felt right here. I tend to get caught up in the face, since it is the most interesting and fun part for me to paint. I have to force myself to stop in order to not overwork it.

Why?

I think that for many years I hated thinking too hard about or talking about art in any way, especially about my own art.

I think this was due to burn out from many many years of art school. I think I also grew tired of the type of people who (at least in my experience) wanted to go on about composition and line and blah blah blah...

I think this will still be sort of hard to write about. I feel like it is a little pretentious of me and if you think so too then you can just stop here and go to hell. (just kidding....sort of hah).

But now I paint because I want to and I think quite a bit about my process and why I do things the way I do them, plus I always find it interesting to read about other artists' processes so here goes:

I like painting people pretty much exclusively. I also like painting animals but mostly just people, and mostly just faces. I really want try painting other things like cityscapes but I am actually a little scared to even try. I am scared that my already scant attention span will make it impossible for me to get through something that isn't a human face. I think I like the challenge involved with trying to capture someone's expression exactly. I do not mean exactly as from a photo (though I do work mostly from my own photos) but exactly as in capturing the essence of what they are feeling in that exact moment. I think this is why I really enjoy painting with harsh light. Maybe I will explain that more later.

I have also found that I have trouble painting people that I do not know or have some sort of connection/relationship with. It is both easier and harder to paint someone you know well because you are acutelty aware of the tiny nuances of their expression, this makes it simple to let your memory help with the painting but it also makes me want to try all the harder to get the likeness or feeling exact. I rarely if ever do but I enjoy trying.

So the first painting I will talk about (if I ever make it past just one in this blog) is of my husband when he was 3 and a half.

Stage 1:



The very first thing I do is make a thin mixture of dark colours (I never EVER use black. Ever.) I use a medium brush to try and plot out the composition and get the proportions as right as I can. I usually don't spend much time on this stage, I used to though, I would painstakingly sketch with pencil on the canvas, trying to get everything exactly right, well... that never works. At some point during painting I will mess everything up and lose the original sketch under a mess of oils so I just dispensed with that step and go straight to it. I try to be intuitive and work as quickly as I can. At this point I might also block in all the very dark shadow areas.

I only use turpenoid that this stage. No linseed or other additives to the paint. As I guess you can see I work on the floor. I have always done this since I was a little kid, doing my homework on the kitchen floor. I am not sure why I do it really. I think it is a combo of never having the right sort of space to paint in or the funds to buy a really nice painting table setup. God knows it hurts my back and neck so...yeah I should probably stop that.