Covid Weary
Oil portrait painting
WIP
This is an image heavy post. I hope the page loads okay for you. I must have been attached to my phone the day I revised this painting because I took a ton of progress shots, which isn’t like me. I don’t usually like stopping to take photos when I paint, but looking back at it now, I’m glad I did.
As always, if you’d like to see these photos full size, be sure to visit my blog. If you’re receiving my post via email, the photos will look smaller..that’s how it appears in my email, anyway.
I’m going through a box of older oil portraits, and revising them. Seems like that’s all I’m doing this year – revising paintings, but it’s okay. I actually enjoy the process because I get a new painting to look at when I’m finished. ATM, it seems easier than staring at a blank canvas wondering what I’m going to paint. Gotta keep moving forward through the sludge of 2020 somehow.
Most of these have something I like about them, but they look flat to me..not enough shadow, detail, emotion or definition. I used to be uncomfortable painting in the shadows, but with years of practice, I don’t give it a thought. It’s only paint, and anything can be painted over, changed or fixed. I never throw out a painting I’m unhappy with, I revise it or paint over it, instead.
I think I originally painted these oil portraits back in 2011 – 2015ish. Most of the heads are misshapen, mouths are too small, foreheads and eyes are way too big. Don’t get me wrong, these characteristics can give a painting personality, make it humorous or unique, but it can also make a portrait ugly. It’s a fine line to walk. It really depends what my goal is at the time.
If I’m painting outsider art style or in my art journals, the weirder, funkier, funnier, and uglier my portraits look, the better I like them. I’m going for a middle of the road, painterly style with these. I usually lean more towards realistic when I paint with oils, but not too realistic. I don’t feel like spending a lifetime on one painting. lol
I liked her eyes, but because I had to change the entire shape of her face (cheeks were too high, and weirdly shaped in the original, so I brought her hair down over her face), I had to move her eyes inward. I decided to change her eye color because I didn’t have any blue on my palette at the time.
I didn’t used to like painting noses, and hers was too small, so not to be noticeable. I widened it, and I think it fits her face better now.
My ultimate goal is to go through this box, and bring the paintings up to speed. I hope to give each one a little more character, and to help bring them alive on the canvas. I’m just painting off the top of my head with no reference photo, making it up as I go along..which is my preferred way of painting.
The paintings I’m okay with selling “as is” will probably be marked down, and sold in a clearance sale I started on Etsy last week. Right now there are more abstracts on sale than anything, but I’ll be adding more portraits soon. Either that or I’ll put them in my eBay store with low starting bids. I need to make room for the new paintings I’ll be creating over the winter.
And now the finished painting..
Ta da!!
Definitely not perfect, but there is no such thing as a perfect painting..ask any artist, and they’ll point out all the flaws in their work in a heartbeat. I’m not going to do that because I find it self-deprecating, and unhelpful. What’s the point?
My goal has been reached, and I’m happy. I fixed the areas that bothered me, and gave her a whole new look. I like the outcome, so this exercise was a success. Her facial expression definitely matches the new title I gave her – Covid Weary.
Available here
If you made it through this extremely long post, thank you. I generally try to keep it shorter, but once in a while it’s good to let loose, and give it my all. 🙂
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