I've been working on a series of self portraits lately and most of them haven't turned out well. Since I've been struggling with them I decided to try a watercolor. I've always felt more comfortable with a brush and I feel like the stars aligned tonight.
I'm happy with this self portrait because it looks like me, but it also feels like me. This is something that's hard to put into words, but I try to capture that feeling in every portrait that I paint. The physical likeness mostly comes from proportion, but I'm not quite sure where the deeper feeling comes from. I also had some good realizations with this self portrait and it developed smoothly. I started off with an accurate underdrawing in pencil and then focused on the overall forms before I developed the detail. Yesterday, I was sketching late at night and it hit me how important the underlying form and structure is. For instance, if I sketch a face the detail has to sit on top of the form. There are a lot of elements involved with any painting, but I think this idea of form before detail is very important.
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We were cleaning out some things today and I found some old treasures. Just like a lot of kids, I enjoyed drawing. My earliest memories of drawing were when I was about 8 years old. I'm sure I did some stuff in school before that, but I remember independently drawing around 8 - 10 years old. One of the things that I also did was to trace over the outline of newspaper photos with a sharpie. I think I may have been younger when I was doing this and I'm not sure why it appealed to me.
In elementary school, I remember getting a how to draw book from the library and I think it was Star Wars themed because I did a step-by-step drawing of a Yoda from it; I'm not into Star Wars, but that memory sticks with me. I was really into cartoons, but I was also compelled to do portraits. I did a portrait of my Grandmother and I can still remember her sitting as I drew her. Luckily, I put a date on these drawings (10 years old). I drew a portrait of George Washington from the dollar bill and I did a master copy of an Edward Hopper who I liked a lot when I was young. I really cherish these old drawings from when I was a kid and it's interesting because I can see glimpses of my style in these early works. There's something deeply rewarding about drawing and I can never quite put it into works. It's about capturing what I see and creating something new. I'm so happy that I rediscovered these. I recently had my friend from back home visit me here in Giverny. He stayed with me for a few days and he sat for a portrait also. Obviously I love painting in gardens and landscapes en plein air, but I really enjoy portraiture and it felt great to paint this one. I also had a fun experience on Friday morning because I was in the garden painting and I saw a camera crew walking around. I was painting when a cameraman came up to me and asked if he could film me painting; he also asked if I wanted to be interviewed by their correspondent. I said I'd love to and was interviewed for a segment that will be airing this summer on the Today Show. They asked about my experience here in Giverny and what it's like to paint in Monet's garden. I'll post something once I know the air date so anyone interested can catch it on TV! I wrote a post a little while ago about my early November trip to see the Sargent and Spain show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. I shared a bunch of images, but only of Sargent. So I figured I'd share some other goodies here (and maybe one more Sargent..) The photos are all captioned with where and what they are. The Vermeers were stunning, the Zorn was great and I'm always a big fan of Cecilia Beaux. Definitely check out these works if you're in D.C. And I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving if I don't write in the meantime. |
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