Keeping skills sharp

I had a humiliating lesson this past week in what it takes to keep your skills sharp. I did a portrait of a writer I admire (Rebecca Solnit) that will henceforth never see the light of day, either on this blog or elsewhere, it was that bad. From a slight head tilt, she became so angled that she looked like she was about to topple over. I chose nontraditional colors (painted her in blues and purples because I was going to put a political quote on the painting) and rather than quirky and interesting, she looked like a catatonic zombie, and it wasn't just the weird colors, it was the crazed look in her eyes! I managed to paint a really nice mouth, but the rest of the portrait would have frightened Morticia Adams.

On Thursday, I decided to try again. This time I followed a suggestion from friend Phoebe, who said, Maybe slow down your usual gung-ho three-hour process, do the drawing, wait a day to look at it, correct it, and then paint, which is what I did. I have also learned that if I make a scan of my drawing and put it up on my computer screen next to the original, I can somehow immediately see flaws that I just couldn't recognize when confronting me from the surface of the paper. I corrected the tilt of one eye, made the nose the proper width, and played with the hair, and then painted.

The painting part also started out rather disastrously, as I got paint everywhere but where I wanted it and had to do a significant amount of "lifting" to get rid of some of it before I could continue. I started out with a big mop brush, because I wanted it to be loose, but ended up retreating to my Escoda Prada to "mop" up the mess and finish the portrait.

I ended up pretty happy with it, and have, in fact, had an inquiry about buying it, so maybe I still have my mojo...but I need to quit waiting weeks between paintings and get back to a regular schedule in order to keep my skills intact.

"Toni Morrison"—Daler Rowney inks, Jackson watercolors, Uniball and Signo pens on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 12x16 inches.