Balancing life between homeschooling my son and wallowing in feelings of dread and despair by scrolling through Twitter, I’ve been getting some painting done too. Since I finished Pepper Tree Court I’ve been experimenting with style and with materials in a string of smaller works. Those big paintings take a lot of energy and time. It’s nice to loosen things up.
Actually, the painting above, Irene and Her Bugs, I thought was going to a be quick one. But getting the lines and the tones right on that house proved challenging and that VW Bug was even harder. Its profile is so iconic that any deviation from is curves soon read as just wrong. I opted for a cool green and blue palette for the house and surrounds because I wanted to make the central figure pop with that pink.
I added that mask at the last minute. A late night bit of inspiration.
Where Irene and Her Bugs required a lot of care with its execution, my next painting Kaye and Joe with Fish let me go a lot looser.
I loved the implied story in the original photo. The husband was clearly having a blast fishing in the hinterland. His wife, based on her hair, clothes and body language, was less enthusiastic. The photo was also dramatically backlit. Conveying both that mood and almost cinematic lighting was the challenge.
And finally, I started experimenting with painting on paper. This is a portrait of a stuffed piranha I bought over 15 years ago. I named it Condoleeza. I painted this on watercolor paper and I really liked how the paint moved on the page. I’m definitely going to do more of this again.