Woman with Flowers 7.1

(7th sketch in series, first iteration of this one)

Woman with Flowers 

Flowers, props 

upholding the woman.

The flowers, fragrant,

imaginary.

The flowers, blossoming

into death.

 

 

Clearly, I need to work on that hand!

Below it is better drawn. Also, since the paper is a bit larger than the scanner, I photomerged two images (still issue in one corner), colour-corrected the paper and dimmed the blacks since it's a very light 6H pencil.

The most difficult part of life drawing for me is getting the figure in proportion. If there's, say, an hour, I'll spend half of it drawing  and rubbing out and rubbing out as I try to map the figure correctly. 

Those are just the bones of a drawing or painting. I don't want to spend inordinate time on the basic sketch anymore when I might want to shade it, or paint, or whatever, and would prefer more time for that when you are under the constraints of an art session timer.

So I am trying to learn how to draw quickly and correctly. That's all these pieces are. A learning tool.

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Self-Portrait with a Fascinator 2016

On Monday, I walked, buying frames from two stores in different parts of the city, then went to the Art Bar Poetry Series in the evening, about 16,000 steps/13.1km. 

Part of a group art show and poetry reading on Sunday. 

I spent the morning searching for a few paintings. All I’ve done, really, is some self portraits because I belonged to a self portrait group on Facebook for a few years. We could only use reflective surfaces, not photographs.

Anyway, I did locate a few of them. Then, I decided to paint a yellow background on an earlier one (that I did use a reference photo for). So I researched what you can use to dry oil paint real fast, and added liquin to the paint. That was late afternoon. 

I came home from the art bar early, about 9pm, and repainted another one’s background red with a real nice, rich oil paint that I purchased a few years ago. I used water mixable oil paints for a number of years, but have gone back to traditional oils for the richness of color.

This one is from a still from a video reading of a poem in 2013 with two other poets that I did to promote our LyricslMyrical chapbooks when we launched together that year at a poetry cafe. The painting was done in 2016 for an art show, but I didn’t use it that time. 

Yellow background still wet. I’m amazed it works. I tried different colours in PhotoShop before deciding on a Medium Cadmium Yellow with some Yellow Ochre. 

Fingers crossed it’s dry by Friday when I’m hanging my 5 paintings. 

Here's the 2013 video of  'This Cabin,' by Lisa Young; 'the luminist poems,' by Brenda Clews; and 'Scarborough Songs,' by Pat Connors.

But the video I took inspiration from for this self portrait painting was this one, it turns out:

(I buried it, despite my daughter liking it, embarrassed that I was so poor I made the fascinator out of a black bra cup and a bit of netting from a fabric store and some Halloween feathers - life of a single mother.)

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