Continuing the "Multitudes" project... expanding the series started with Hum?Hum. and Secrets.
After working with trios for a long time, I'm enjoying working with pairs. I stayed away from pairs for a long time because they tend to become opposites. Now they are becoming interesting as a way of subverting that notion.
I take a lot of snapshots during the painting. For many reasons. The main one is that there is no UNDO! And, in painting, you can really lose something you liked before. There's no getting it back. It's the opposite of life really. In life, if there is no proof you can always deny it!
It's also important to capture these snapshots because they give me an over-all effect - they give me some distance from the piece. Quite literally. I'm constantly surprised by the huge difference of seeing the same painting up close and far away. Snapshots and their analysis become a routine exercise for me. For example, these shots helped me realize the head on the right was HUGE! It is now fixed.. Also, they help me capture the more illusive notions of a "composition that works" or a "good rhythm." Sometimes a piece will pass through a good stage and then lose it, and I study these pictures desperately to try to understand why it looked so much better at that one point!
This one is What, also 36 x 36 in. What I learned from this shot: I really like the face on the right, it looks natural, sort of amused and very loose - I'm going to have to resist the temptation to play with it more; the head on the left is not working though, it looks a bit square. Also the shadows on the hands and rib cage from afar look a bit too dark and interrupt the natural modeling of the body.
The piece is Look, 36 x 36 in, oil on canvas.
Closer to done!
After working with trios for a long time, I'm enjoying working with pairs. I stayed away from pairs for a long time because they tend to become opposites. Now they are becoming interesting as a way of subverting that notion.
I take a lot of snapshots during the painting. For many reasons. The main one is that there is no UNDO! And, in painting, you can really lose something you liked before. There's no getting it back. It's the opposite of life really. In life, if there is no proof you can always deny it!
It's also important to capture these snapshots because they give me an over-all effect - they give me some distance from the piece. Quite literally. I'm constantly surprised by the huge difference of seeing the same painting up close and far away. Snapshots and their analysis become a routine exercise for me. For example, these shots helped me realize the head on the right was HUGE! It is now fixed.. Also, they help me capture the more illusive notions of a "composition that works" or a "good rhythm." Sometimes a piece will pass through a good stage and then lose it, and I study these pictures desperately to try to understand why it looked so much better at that one point!
This one is What, also 36 x 36 in. What I learned from this shot: I really like the face on the right, it looks natural, sort of amused and very loose - I'm going to have to resist the temptation to play with it more; the head on the left is not working though, it looks a bit square. Also the shadows on the hands and rib cage from afar look a bit too dark and interrupt the natural modeling of the body.
1 comment:
im liking these angles a lot!
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