Three more paintings

I finally have more photos of some more of my paintings. Yay day! The quality of the photos are alright, I think any painting loses something when photographed, and then put onto the computer, but these turned out well nonetheless.

The first is an assignment to paint a "figure in space". Sitting in the common room of my dorm was a large white wardrobe cabinet used to hold a non-functioning television. It became a ritual to gather around the oddly proportioned ratio of television to empty cabinet, and I would watch as a dorm of 32 high school junior girls attempted to fix the ancient device-- hopefully in time for Monday night Gossip Girl. Although it was mysteriously never fixed properly, both the TV and the cabinet remained, holding lost clothing, text books, and leftover markers from Happy List making. One day an anonymous lady left a large orange pumpkin sitting on top of the wardrobe cabinet, comically asserting it as basically just a thing to put things on/in. The attempt at decoration amused me, and I used it as my painting subject. The cabinet in my painting is much more characaturized than what it may actually look like, with the dramatic beam of light on the dark walls announcing its strength, while being totally alone in the room. It was a quick painting, probably an hour or two to paint, 16" x 20". The pumpkin eventually rotten into a gross lump, one of the doors of the cabinet broke, and both television and its home were replaced the next year.



The next painting I did is the largest one I've done so far, about 2' x 3'. Massive. It takes forever to do a painting this size, and its even more challenging to have enough paints. I went through tubes and tubes of expensive coriander and cadmium and violet oils before finishing this piece, and lost some good brushes along the way. The most frustrating portion to paint was the hand--I either struggled with the size, or trying to make the fingers look delicate and less like a gorilla's. My favorite part is right along the right side of the torso, where the skin bends against the dark background. I elongated the torso to give it even more of an "in your face" and graceful appeal, and the tiny peak of the small of the back and butt crack (is there even a more dainty way of saying this? all we got is "butt crack?? seriously?) balances the blatant expanse of naked skin in the rest of the painting.


The third is one I did before the second (uh oh, switching it up now)-- I actually have no clue about the dimensions for this one. No flippin' clue folks. Deal with it. This painting is my all time favorite. I think by the end of it I felt like a had given birth to an adult child, I had spent so many hours working on it and staring at it and, well just mostly staring at it trying to make sense of all that hair. From the ear, to the jaw line, to the feel of the skin and hair, I am totally pleased with this piece. 101%. This is the first real painting I've done that called me to navigate the presence of so much skin, and how on earth skin is supposed to be painted. I used pretty much only white, some yellow hues, and some pink hues. But lots and lots of white, which surprised me and challenged me. The strands of hair were the most fun to paint because it was a systematic maze of where one chunk needed light, or where it fell behind another piece of hair. I hope to work more with hair eventually, especially when contrasted to bright and glowing naked skin.