Week 9

Camera, acrylic on board, 12" x 12"

This week I have been working on the fine line between a painting being too literal or too messy. I prefer paintings that are one or two steps back from being finished or too polished. I find it happens a lot with the painters I see on television, they'll be working a piece and it looks really good and then they add in those finishing touches and it looks hokey! 

I am always trying to stay as loose as possible, however with a subject such as this camera, 

the details are so interesting that I get caught up in trying to render them accurately 

and the details make the painting tight. 

This painting is a little too finished for my taste, but I like it anyway.

The love of all things camera runs deep in my family.... my father started me early with a box Brownie, already quite an old camera at the time.

Woman, acrylic on board, 8"x 10"

The portraits are engaging me the most because I am such a beginner at portrait painting. 

I decided to take Sargent's advice this week and paint someone I had no connection to. 

This is an anonymous photograph from the internet. 

The portraits are coming along.... at some point the painting is just done and even if is not quite right and I should do as Sargent says and start again from the beginning, I haven't left myself time for that. I am hoping starting again each week will be the fresh start I didn't allow myself the week before.

Wyoming from the Train, acrylic on board, 12" x 9"

Those of you who know me, know I have hundreds of photographs taken from trains. 

Enough that I could just paint landscapes taken from trains for the rest of my life. 

This is taken from the back car, although it looks as if it's a view from the front. 

They've never let me on an engine yet.