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.