I've mentioned before that one of the things I tried working on this past semester whilst painting was staying loose. Another, even more difficult, practice was to keep working on a painting through the stages of "God, that looks awful", "Ugh, I hate this", and "What the hell am I doing?"
This is one such painting.
This was the last in-class painting for my figurative painting class. We had five weeks and it was to be our best painting of them all! Granted, I missed one class but even with four weeks this painting frustrated me more than any other painting the entire Spring semester. I re-started this three times. The only reason I didn't re-start it a fourth was because I was running out of time and worked through the hatred.
And I'm glad I did. Granted, the composition I still dislike. It doesn't utilize the space of the canvas and continually frustrated me. However, it's what I learned while painting that was worthwhile. Working through frustration and dislike of a painting or drawing is almost always beneficial because I learn what it is that's bothering me and try to work a way around it. Compositionally, with this one I tried accommodating for my terrible placement with texture and color in the negative space.
Working on this further and not starting over also allowed for me to develop the skin tones and plane changes more than I would have been able to if I scrapped it and started anew. I like how the breast and shoulder turned out. Also, I think I captured the cool light on one side and the warm on the other pretty well. I'm not sure had I started over that I would have had time for these nuances.
Do I love this painting? No. Is it my favorite of the semester? No. But I did learn a lot while painting, the best being how to deal with my frustration and work through it. This is super helpful because in case you don't know me well, I tend to get frustrated frequently and with ease. It's a work in progress.
Also, I'd like to note I didn't post Friday... sorry about that. Hence this Tuesday post. Also, I have a super awesome friend visiting me tomorrow and staying for a week, so I'm doubtful that I'll have time to post anything until next Friday.
Have a great week, everyone!
2 comments:
Your painting explorations of the female figure are really nice. You've got a great sense for defining flesh in color (your color use is awesome!) and the indication of light. Your figures often have a really neat quality of sort of glowing, as if radiating their own luminosity as well. And I can totally relate to your frustration and agree that it's worth it to stick with a project if you can because it forces you to answer questions, problem solve, etc., the result of which should make you better for it. So I guess I better start picking up some projects I've been avoiding!
Thanks, Angela! Yeah, it can really be frustrating but a lot of the time it's worth sticking through it. Revive those old projects! I'd love to see more of your work!
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