Dancing with Dad

When I made my last post about my "Faces of California" idea, little did I know that within three weeks I'd be in the hospital! I had already started the next painting in the series, but health issues intervened; I ended up with a bad outbreak of cellulitis on both my legs from ankle to knee, jumped through many ridiculous hoops trying to get treatment, and finally ended up hospitalized for five days, followed by about three months of recuperation. Although I came home after the five days, I was still on antibiotics for awhile, and my legs remained blistered and weepy for a long time. I was unable to sit up at the computer or the easel for more than half an hour at a time for about the first five weeks, so I made little to no progress on my painting.

Since then, I have worked on it in small increments, doing the shirt, the skirt, a face, over a period of several weeks. Then I got hung up on the background. I put in some furniture that would typically appear at this kind of occasion, but it was too detailed to be background, and it distracted from the subjects of the painting. I finally, after struggling with various iterations of it for a couple of weeks, asked advice of a friend, who counseled me to paint it out and replace it with a vague background of drapes and lights represented in the blurry distance/background.

I made it as far as restoring the plain yellow background, also redoing the floor in colors that dropped back (went from warmer to cooler tones), and got stuck again. I stared at the painting every single day for about a week, looking for inspiration, and finally concluded that all that was really lacking was bravery, so I finally put in a yellow curtain with white lights. I stared at that for a few more days and absolutely hated it. The background looked amateurish and too literal behind the more painterly figures. The colors (browns and mustard yellow) didn't work. 

I went to three more artist friends for advice. One commented on the layout and I realized she was right—it was too static, and it split the figures exactly in half, a big no-no. One pointed out some subtle colors in the darks and lights that I could add in for more nuance. One shared a video of an art teacher we both follow, and I took a good look at her backgrounds, which were "blurry" rather than being detailed, and substituted amorphous shapes for specific items. I decided to implement all of that. So I painted out everything I had done behind the figures, and then experimented on paper with where and what colors to use before committing it to the actual painting. I considering adding a little stenciling for a tile effect for the floor, but it didn't work, perspective-wise.

Again, I struggled with committing, and finally did the background as it is below, redoing and refining various effects until they worked for me (more or less).

After that, I fiddled with ideas for the cradle-board edges. Because I painted out the background so many times, I didn't do a "wraparound" of what was on the front except for the skirt on the bottom, so I thought that duplicating my success on the Strawberry Fields painting by using stenciling would be a good idea. I went through the ones I owned and tried out a couple on paper but again, nothing was quite right, so I ordered more stencils and waited for them to arrive. I tried a couple of versions and finally ended up doing some roses and leaves in strong colors and then glazing over them with pale pink to make them drop back so they didn't overwhelm the more subtle colors of the painting itself.

This is, without a doubt, the painting that has taken me the longest of any I have done, and I still can't say that I'm completely satisfied with it. I loved the idea, but feel like I haven't pulled off the execution quite as I envisioned it. But after more than four months of fiddling with it, I have decided to call it done and move on! I hope somebody out there likes it.

This painting represents a father-daughter dance at a Latina girl's Quinceañera, a traditional, lavish celebration of a rite of passage marking a girl's transition to womanhood on her 15th birthday. "Quinceañera: Dancing with Dad" is an acrylic painting of 16x20 inches on a cradle board. I plan to use this self-framing base for the entire "Faces of California" series. It's more expensive by far than buying flat wooden panels, but still more frugal than having to pay for framing—and has interesting possibilities for complementing the painting both esthetically and symbolically.

I can't finish this post without saying thanks to Phoebe, Corinne, Kim, and Emma for both their patience and their good suggestions. I don't often ask advice, but sometimes you need another opinion (or four), and my friends came through for me on this trainwreck. It really helps that they're all amazing artists. Thanks, y'all!