Monday, July 21, 2008

EVALUATING THE EXPERIMENTS


I'm working on these small paintings a few minutes here and there around all the minutia of my day. I am getting anxious to spend considerably more serious time on a major painting. I am excited because I thought of what I want to do. The dark side of producing a painting that turns out to be a major piece and receives a lot of attention is the pressure to do it again! I feel like I've peaked! I was contemplating how to photograph the drawing that will be in the next Strokes of Genius 2 book and I realized I never did a painting of this image, only the drawing. I think it should make an interesting painting. That will be my next project. I am going to change the format a bit. I will post as I work on it.

In the meantime, I need to evaluate my little experiments. Today I worked on 3 more bozzettos, only completing this one. The others aren't worth wasting more paint on. It's not always a virtue to keep going. I once heard a wonderful expression: "When the horse dies, get off." I learned what I needed to with the unfinished last two. The texture was too overwhelming and unattractive for a portrait head. The one I completed (above) is too textural in the face as well. The stamps seem to have less contrast than the plastic squares. I think the acrylic gel gets down in the grooves of the pattern of the squares and deposits too much texture. It does make an interesting background, however. Scale plays a part. This size pattern on a much larger head will look somewhat different.

I changed the set of primaries on this last head to see what colors I could produce. New Gamboge, Ultramarine and Primary Red. Don't ask what Primary red is. It's a hue but not a pigment. I just go by the labels on the bottles. The red mixed with Ultramarine creates a purple that is close to brown, very rich and beautiful. Excellent skin tone for darker complexions.

6 comments:

David Lobenberg said...

kinda like this one. Bozzettos...cool word. Have you heard Pochade?

Anonymous said...

has stephen bruce seen your work of him? just curious. I see all the texture but I don't think it is too much, but what do I know? I never was able to see his website.

Cecelia said...

You might be more satisfied with the textures,etc. if you put it up, alone, and backed off from it, rather than looking at it up close. Interesting.

Michelle Himes said...

I really like this one, Myrna. I don't think it's too much texture at all. And I love the colors!

Myrna Wacknov said...

David, The only pochade I know is what they call those portable painting setups. Tried to look up the word but not in the dictionary. Enlighten us, please!

Mary, I told Mr. Bruce that I had posted a painting of him. Haven't heard from him so don't know if he has seen it.

Cecelia and Michelle, thanks for the comments.

David Lobenberg said...

Those smaller portable set ups are for pochade painting. Pochade means quick sketch.

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