What Do You Care? 
Art journal portrait
Small to large prints are available here

I’ve been having soooo much fun in the studio lately, painting loosely, which is quite a contrast from the portrait I posted yesterday, I know. There was a time (2010-2013ish) when I was leaning heavily towards being a realistic portrait painter. I have since changed my mind, obviously.

Don’t get me wrong. I still love and highly appreciate all the work that goes into realism, but painting realistically, and copying a photo exactly -to me- feels more like I’m striving to be a machine than an artist. Sure, it shows off a certain skill level, but at the end of the day,  that’s not something important to me. 

Copying a photo doesn’t excite me or make me want to get out of bed in the morning. It’s rather stressful and boring, to be honest. When I’m in the studio, I prefer being spontaneous, and making things up as I go along. Instead of worrying if the nose is the exact width as the nose I’m seeing in the photo, I’m having fun making up stories about my little characters’ lives as I’m painting them. It’s a whole different experience. I don’t need to worry about getting the hair color right or if the teeth are the right shade of white. Nope! No worries, just fun. 

I like to paint more realistically from time to time because I like the discipline, but I realized early on that I’d be miserable if I painted like that all the time. I think all the characters living in my head would be super unhappy with me, too, if I didn’t let them out to play their moody little games with each other..like the two above. 😀 

You can watch me paint this grumpy little Miss Thang
in this art journal painting video
Hit the subscribe button on the lower right of the video, 
so you never miss another one. 
New uploads every Friday. 

Listening to: I’m still working my way down through Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Today I listened to Wilco, and Eurythmics, which I loved. Only 491 albums to go.