Second Session of 4 - Painting Class

First of all:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REBEKAH!

Then, this is my painting after today - the second day of working on it. These are FOUR HOUR days! This is a FOUR FOOT square painting - it'll take WEEKS.

Anyway, it's a good painting, if I do say so myself. See? I am learning something! The model even took a picture of it today. I was working away when Clintel (the teacher) comes up and says, 'talk to me' (he's this cool, dread-locked black guy) so I told him I didn't want to paint the mess under the chair. It's ugly and complex and drab and boring. He said that's what painters do - they do the hard thing. So I painted it and he was right. It added a depth and an interest that the painting needed. He said you can't tell little lies - you have to tell the whole truth. No fudging the details. It reminds me - don't paint THINGS (a pot, the chair rail, a basket) paint colors and light and dark and all of this turns INTO things. Ya, it was boring stuff under that chair but it was there and I wanted to tell the truth.

We have 2 more days to paint on this and I hope I can continue to keep the colors pretty simple like they are. I left one photo un-cropped. When I first uploaded them, I didn't remember painting that brown thing on top of the radiator on the left side. The color of the real wall and the color of the wall in my painting are so similar, I didn't realize that was the real thing! I am missing the color in her skin and I will work on her legs and feet next week - I didn't get there today. I am thinking I need to tone down the color on the front edge of the table behind the model because it comes forward too much and it needs to move back.

I'll keep thinking about this painting all week until I just can hardly stand to not get in there and paint on it! I get pooped out by about the third hour and lose my steam. That's when the big strokes, the 'filling it in' comes in. I need to keep up the intensity and the focus all the way through.