Flowers in Her Hair – portrait painting WIP

Flowers in Her Hair
portrait painting WIP

I didn’t paint much yesterday because we were experiencing high wind (90 mph), thunderstorms, and dust storms in the area. It got pretty intense, and loud in the afternoon with rain beating on the windows, and nonstop howling wind.

The sky was filled with thick black smoke, and mandatory evacuations were in progress from nearby fires. Tornado, fire, and police sirens were blaring, and orders to STAY AT HOME DO NOT DRIVE were given. <– You gotta watch this mind blowing video to see how crazy it was.

Lots of tree limbs down this morning. A school roof blew off, and I think they called off school for many districts today, so they can assess the damage. It was crazy. Luckily, we only lost power a couple times, but weirdly, after the wind died down, the internet went out and stayed out all night. 

I didn’t time myself, but if I was to guess, I’d say I only painted about 10 minutes yesterday morning before the fiasco started. This is where I left off. 

This morning I cleaned it up a bit, and ah..Idk? I’m trying, but tbh, I’m struggling to like this painting. I think it’s the shape of her face that’s bugging me. I’ve been trying to preserve the flowers in her hair, since it’s the title of the painting, but I might need to paint over them in order to fix the shape of her head. I can easily repaint the roses in her hair. I’ll see what I think tomorrow. 

I know her eyes are off. I spent a great deal of time repainting them only to look at these photos and discover one eye is bigger than the other. Oops! The eye on the right I moved downward, and now it seems to set back too far, and is much smaller than the left one. 

I also widened her nose, which threw off her mouth, so I had to repaint that, also. Ended up not liking the new shape of her mouth, scrubbed the new paint off, and painted it again. It’s still not where I want it to be. Basically I need to fix it, and EVERYTHING about this painting. In order to get this blog post written, I had to stop painting. Lots to do tomorrow to hopefully get this one finished..we’ll see. 

Oy. Work work work work work..it NEVER ends. I don’t know about you, but I’m soooo looking forward to a holiday break. As much as I love my job, there are times where I’d rather do anything besides work. This year, I’m feeling especially burnt out and exhausted. Buddhamas and the retreat I’ll be doing can’t get here fast enough. That reminds me..I will be taking 3 weeks off starting on Monday, so if you plan on ordering anything from Etsy, Ebay or here on my website, I highly suggest you do it by Sunday night to avoid shipping delays. 

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Watching: Web Free-point-oh: NFTs, DAOs, the Value of Art, and the Cutest Kitty on the Internitty

Reading: Find your word 2022 – I think I’ve picked my word for next year already, but if you need some help, check out this pdf.

Artist I’m admiring: Storm