I thought I’d hate the fumes. I don’t. What really happened is that I transported myself back to my days as an art student at Parsons School of Design in NYC.
I’d forgotten how the smell of linseed oil evoked the small, airless room we painted in, feeling a little bohemian and maybe a little bit goofy after 5 hours of breathing in turps.
I’d had this reference photo of a Trinidad Market Girl and wanted to rough out a sketch first, to get scale and placement. Sketching gets me familiar with the subject.
This is an 8X10 linen canvas that I tinted first, and visible are the bisecting lines in pink to make sure I didn’t truncate her head or her arms. You know how that goes- huge head, tiny body.
I need to pitch a big thank you to two great blog mate painters who are always eager to share information and very generously.
Linda Blondheim– a superb painter of Florida landscapes whose posts include textbooks worth of painting tips. You’d think she was getting paid to do it.
And Nancy Moskovitz who is also a terrific Florida painter in both oils and acrylics, for sharing painting tips and a great heads up on increasing your hits on your blog by selecting the right titles- read more about it here at Empty Easel.
Getting my Photoshop toes in the water and playing with values lets me look as I go, with a dispassionate eye. Being artists, we’re supposed to be passionate. We can trip over our own damn egos and toes if we’re not careful. I fiddled around to get this in shades of grey- thought it looked pretty good.
It’s a real discipline for me to get un-disciplined. I went for loose and sassy. Did I make it?
Asheville: The North West of The South East 