Shifting gears...for the moment

I love doing abstracts. I can't think of anything much more liberating than throwing a bunch of brightly-colored paints on a canvas, blending them, and seeing what happens. I really can't describe how it feels.

But I've had this nagging feeling, and have literally been nagged (Ok, so gently nudged) by my husband and a fellow artist, to do portraits in addition to the abstracts. I am guessing that many people wonder if abstract artists can, in fact, draw. This is not to discount abstract work (I personally like my own work as well as abstracts of other artists), but there is something about being able to draw realistically that validates one as a "real artist." So I suppose part of my need to draw realistically is to help assuage my insecurities. 

 

I did a few portraits in pastels when I took a few art classes just for fun, back in the early 90's. And now, suddenly, I desperately want to paint portraits. I'm talking like the Masters. Ok, so it's a slightly lofty goal, but hey, why not shoot for the moon?

So here was my first attempt at a pastel portrait in something like 15 years (I'd kept some of the pastels in a Tupperware container). Obviously, I didn't finish. The pastels just didn't feel right. I missed the feeling of how paints move across canvas.


So I sat down a few days ago & did a sketch. It took 3 hours.


The painting took 7 hours. It's not bad for never having painted a portrait and having no clue what I was doing.. There are a lot of problems with it. For one, it doesn't look like the subject. The skin color is totally wrong, I couldn't do the shadows, she has a mop on her head instead of hair, and the poor woman has no chin! I may go back and correct and finish it, or I may re-do the whole portrait at some point. It practically killed me. I threw a few temper tantrums (but managed not to break anything) and cried. It was an immense struggle. Exhausing. Not the experience I was going for. So I've  decided to go back to the drawing board. Literally...