Temporarily Finished

I so often hear people proclaim that they cannot paint or draw.  What they actually mean is that they cannot draw or paint in a manner they perceive as successful. Well, the truth is, neither can I.  What I have learned to do is to take an honest assessment of my work.  A great deal of it ends up sitting behind bookshelves, or painted over and over and over again. When we "critique" works of art, or perhaps attempts at works of art, we not only look for the part that flops, but we find the parts that succeed.

Well, here I am near, or perhaps at, the end of this painting.  I have reached the point where I feel there's still some tweaking to do, but I am not exactly sure what it is.  So, we are calling it done.  For now at least.  At this point I know it isn't a masterpiece and I strongly suspect it isn't wall worthy let alone gallery worthy.  Yet there are some good "take away" successes.  Let's talk about the things that work:

The last blog I had mentioned that I needed to do something with that yellow background.  Yellow is a very "advancing" color.  It just demands attention.  While I don't mind a little bit of a fight with the figure and the background as it keeps the eye bouncing, I don't want the background to "win" the feud.  By pulling some of that light ceruilean blue into the figure and into the darker background, I feel it has softened the struggle just enough.  For the most part, I incorporated this color into the highlights.  None the less, there are areas where that ceruilean blue just seems to sit upon the surface of the painting.  For some reason, this seems to help as well.

Another concern early on was that I keep the eye going all over the painting.  Otherwise, it could have been just a more traditional portrait and could have been cropped to a much smaller size.  Although one could argue whether the bottom half of the painting is actually necessary, I find that there's enough visual interest to have one's eye move to that area of the painting. The interest doesn't rest in the structure of the gown or the details of it.  The bottom of the gown is pretty boring.  But, the haphazard splashes of color and the ambiguity of the gown's edge as it goes into that Payne's grey shadow take the eye to the bottom half of the painting.

                                                                                                                                                                         The  third "take away" is that I have enjoyed the translucent quality of the layers of paint.  I still feel it has a slightly encaustic feel as a result of some of the mediums I had used.  Some areas are a bit "milky" or "hazy" and add to the effect.  For those of you that might be interested in experimenting let me explain what I have done here.  I used an acrylic gel medium quite a bit.  I also used a glazing medium.  At times, I mixed the two together.  At the start of the painting I mixed modeling paste with the gel medium and added color. This, combined with the chip board surface, gave me the initial texture I was seeking. I then used the palette knife to paint this mixture onto the prepared surface.  As I progressed I used the glazing medium mixed with color to apply thin washes when I wanted color to seep into crevices and used the gel mediums to color to heap more texture.  Finally, I sometimes just layered on a coat of gel medium alternately with full color paint.  This "sandwiched" the colors between layers and it gave a completely different effect than suspending color within the mediums.  There were moments when I used the brush to apply thin washes, and moments when I used a dry rag to wipe paint off of the surface.  I use a variety of "qualities" of paint.  While the "professional" paints seem to be superior when suspending them in the glazing medium, for the most part, I am pretty satisfied with a less expensive option.  If I were selling paintings for substantial sums of money, I may consider the investment into the higher quality of paint for the "lightfast" ratings.


Update: Jan 2018

I really think this will never be finished to my satisfaction.  I wasn't happy with the facial features, so I went over them again.  I am a little happier.  But I still feel as if the eyes are not quite real, and an ear is still to long.  I revisited the hands as well.  I do feel as if I have lost some consistency in texture as the face has become too detailed when compared to the hands.  I am not sure this matters.  One could say that it puts more focus on the face.  Well, here it is as it is for the moment.

Right now I am calling it "The Good Queen"  I am interested in that alert far away look in her eyes and the tying of the shawl.  She is prepared, ready for action at a moment's notice and unafraid.  She isn't lavished with jewels but yet she is "put together".  These are qualities I find in both of my daughters.  Well, usually anyway.