Some portraits
No chains
I decided to exclude the chains. It is enough to depict two people bound together struggling to be free. Or is only one aching to be free? Difficult to tell from this image. So often people have their epiphanies after they destroy others. And the destruction may not be literal or obvious. It is enough to wear away at someone’s confidence or their self-worth. Often, one’s self-actualization is an excuse to think of oneself above others. I still like the abstract background these figures inhabit. I am reminded of the work of David Park. It has always been a goal of mine to depict figures in a landscape but to have the elements appear to be organically formed, that is, to grow from each other. Complicated, and difficult to achieve.
Covering up
I began this small painting of two figures breaking free of their constraints: chains to come. I used a canvas that already had a painting of a landscape that went awry, and I like the abstract element it adds to the work at this early stage.
Catching up
Recently someone I consider a wonderful person died. As I age I keep receiving these alerts that life is brief. So as the saying goes, I return to art, which lasts far longer. This past weekend, I attended a walk at Aquetong Spring Park in New Hope, PA given by the Philadelphia Mycology Club. The person leading the walk struck me because her features seemed straight out of an early Lucian Freud painting. I also completed the portrait of my puggle Sammie, which I will be giving to her amazing Veterinarian Dr. Jessica and the staff at Lambertville Animal Hospital.
I love this face 😊
I worked some more on my portrait of Sammie. This old dog breaks my already broken heart 💔 I applied various cool and warm shades to her coat and I more clearly delineated her eyes.
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Sammie
Yesterday, I began this portrait of my 17-year-old puggle Sammie. I have been wasting too much time lately. Seeing this beautiful face reminded me of the important things in life.
Landscape Attempt, again
I am focusing on both composition and color particular to nature as I work on improving my landscape painting. My impetus was this lovely acrylic painting on wood panel by Nora Muchanic. I am learning a lot just by looking at her sense of color, brushstroke application and simple but elegant composition. Her painting is entitled “Lone Tree.” I recently visited Andalusia in Bucks County and was impressed with the design of their gardens, as well as all of the natural beauty found along the Delaware River. My painting is called “Road to Andalusia.”
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Of Feet and Vulnerability
Every time you wear sandals instead of shoes you make yourself vulnerable; you do so if you go barefoot. Why do our bodies make us open to judgement, or worse, attack? Why do we allow ourselves to live inside skins that can be ridiculed, pummeled or desecrated? And after we have been humiliated why do we say “once more, please?” Good questions for which I don’t have the answers. Rather, I choose not to answer. This particular illustrated body is in danger because something has weakened him. His feet being exposed seems to be the least of his problems.
When I first learned about Caravaggio, one of my professors talked about why the artist painted a figure’s dirty feet. These dirty feet showed that the painter used every-day people to represent Jesus’s disciples. The gutter was brought into a work of art. Low meets High. The art of Caravaggio is for the masses and about the masses. Those feet demonstrated that Caravaggio came from a world that was decided on the streets. This is very different than the figures seen in Rubens: those lush, bathed and neatly quaffed figures more at home in the Courts of Kings and Queens.
This is where I am with the most recent painting. Perhaps I have overworked these feet already, and I am feeling a bit insecure about that.
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