Work in Progress

Well here it is - a little glimpse of a work in progress. Isn't that white daunting? This is my first larger "vignette". I love the intimate, slice-of-life, subject matter and have wanted try working on a larger scale. I didn't do much to alter this blank sheet of linen (I'll stretch or mount it later). I first tried sketching in with my brush but then felt I needed more drawing so went in with charcoal. And made a mess.

Once I wiped off the false start, I used my more usual method of sketching a road map of sorts with the brush and then massing in. The goal is not to create an exact duplicate of a scene, so I forgave myself little errors in drawing and eliminated some clutter.

I made some "notes" on the darks and then used my favorite little trick of wiping out the lightest lights with a little OMS on a rag. Linen is great for this reason - you can wipe it back to a clean white surface again. And clean lights/whites are important to create beautiful highlights.

 Now I worked all the darker and middle tones -most of the painting.

A little more progress being made... but its not done yet. I've left her face and clothes undone and set the painting aside today to work on a new painting while I mull this one over for a few days. I'm not quite satisfied with the "tightness" either. (Everything is compartmentalized. ?) I might even have my model come back to sit for the final touches. This was painted from a study and photos of a model. My second go at a larger work began more easily - with lots of massing in and moving around the panel.

This is as yet unnamed, and is 22x28" on linen. My plan is to show it at the Russell Collection Fine Art Gallery "Femme" show opening in December in Austin. Its nice to have time to work on these larger pieces and live with them before sending them out.

If you care to keep reading, I will tell you that I my plan this year is to paint larger and slow down. I tend to work fast, but that meant that each week I was trying to create multiple gallery-worthy paintings and stressing about it. I have a lot of work available (lots of small works since the Vignettes show) and I think I can relax and really consider what I want to paint and what I want to say.