shake shake shake

trouble
Originally uploaded by a me.

While I attempt to coordinate my hand and brain in an act of creativity against the passage of time, I encounter two main obstacles. The first is Sheila. She allows me a good half an hour of uninterrupted time before she lets me know with either grunting or loud BARK BARK BARKing that she has needs too. The second obstacle is the awesome music I put on my iPod! The involuntary "dancing" gets in the way of keeping the paint moving. I just can't deny the call of KC & The Sunshine Band don'tcha know. Could you?

too much cow bell

bdaynook1_27
Originally uploaded by a me.

I made some more progress on this painting. So much time passes for just this one of the many things I'd like to do. Ah well. We do what we can. I'm finding it's more difficult for me to paint people I know. I spend more time considering if something is good enough, or correct enough. I think about how my mom has certain feelings about her nose which I don't want to exacerbate by painting her nose a certain way. I don't want my cousin to dislike the depiction of herself in my painting... But really, I don't want to paint to replicate what someone looks like, I do want to capture a mood or a feeling, but that doesn't necessarily require a perfect (um, excruciating attempt at) likeness. So, these concerns I have are pushing away how I'd really like to paint. I think maybe that's what gives the "ladies" picture the life it has - I don't know these ladies personally, so I'm not concerned about their feelings about how I'm making them look. I am also learning how much an overly defined eyebrow can look really freaky.

I cleared a path

eprogress
Originally uploaded by a me.

Guess what? I cleaned out a part of the room in which I paint - at least so I could stand near the painting which is loosly nailed to a wall - and I focused on one head of the current painting. After a couple hours of so-so progress, I see that I shouldn't focus on one small part of the painting at once, especially considering that I'm using acrylics and so the paint in my palette dries and months later when I start on it again I've made some colors which don't have much to do with the ones I used before. So, whatever. I took shots of the head as I progressed and I think that the face with slightly less definition is more intriguing. I'm working off of a photo and I think I got too caught up with trying to capture a certain look in the photo, instead of being more open to how the painted face was progressing, what this new face might want to do. Does that sound goofy?