Empathy

I couldn't decide what to call this one. I wanted it to convey sympathy, compassion, fellow feeling,  and finally that comes down to empathy, "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." I painted this while thinking of my cousins Cos and Kirsten, who are really going through it right now. Some of the things they are feeling I can completely share, while others, since I haven't experienced them directly, are a little harder. I just knew I wanted to make some art to express that they are in my thoughts and my heart goes out to them.

"Empathy"—charcoal pencil, acrylic paints, and Stabilo All on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, approx. 8x11 inches.

It's surprisingly difficult to paint someone with only part of their face showing and get all the angles right. I redrew this three times, and can still see a few things I should have fixed. But I wanted the effect of someone standing back out of the center of attention, so I gave it a try.

I love portraits

Do I enjoy doing little urban sketches, or illustrating some food to go with a recipe, or painting a brochure or a map? Yeah, I do. But...these past two years of quarantine, portrait painting has taken precedence—mostly because of the classes I took and am still taking. And I have to admit that, when the portrait goes right and I do what I wanted to do, which is to capture a likeness but also express an emotion and make a connection with the face on the page, there is nothing more satisfying—and I feel like I have barely scratched the surface in two years of painting people.

I have a painting I want to make, but I'm a little afraid of it—it's more ambitious than anything I have previously undertaken, since it is a full-figure painting (or at least 3/4) rather than just head and shoulders, and includes two people. So I bought a canvas (part of what is probably making me afraid, since previous to this I have only painted on paper), and mapped out in a sketch on paper what I want to do and how, and that's as far as I've made it.

When I don't show any major new work for a few days, some of it is that when I do a portrait that takes a lot out of me (like "Strong Light" did a few days ago), it can take a few days to get out from under its spell so I can contemplate another; some of it is also that when I release tiny bits of creativity doing these October prompts every day, it's not as satisfying but it's enough to make me feel like I did something, so I don't do anything else. But yesterday I looked at a reference that had such sweetness and personality in it that I just had to paint the subject, and I had to do it as closely as possible to the manner in which she would do it. So, last night I got out my brayer and my acrylics, carefully selected my colors, and slopped them all over a piece of 12x16 paper, with scrapes and drips and runs and swashes of color mixed over the top of one another, and today I painted the portrait.

This is taken from a photo of my teacher, Emma Petitt, and uses her favorite palette of red, orangey-pink, and turquoise (I added the lavender because I love it). Her smile in the photo was so quirky and engaging, and her crinkled-up eyes expressed such joy that I needed to capture it all.

I did some process photos (I'm trying to remember to do that!). Sometimes when I look back at them, I regret some of the stuff I have covered up and wish I had left it a little more raw, but...paint and learn. Or don't paint and learn.

I think I have made her look maybe a decade younger than she is, by getting the eyes a little too big and the face a little sharper than it should be, but it's still a good likeness. More important, I feel like it captures every ounce of that expression of good will she puts out to the world.

"Emma"—charcoal pencil, acrylic paints, and Stabilo All pencils on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, 12x16 inches.

Time for tea

Today's prompt in the 31 Flavors was "chai tea." That sounded so appealing, sitting in my chilly house, that I decided to take a little break from my chores (this is never a hard decision to make!) to do a sketch. My teapot is actually pink to go with my kitchen, but the orange seemed so much more autumnal, and blended nicely with the warm milky color of the tea and "biscuits," as the Brits would call them. A little spatter also seemed to fit with the theme, since making loose tea always results in some scattered on the counter. My shapes got a little wonky, but that's what contour drawing is all about—perfection is not the goal!

I'm going to have to pick up some ginger and cardamom next time I'm at the store and indulge myself!

Uniball pen and watercolor in Bee sketchbook, about 8x8 inches.

Yummy

I couldn't get out with my local group today for International Urban Sketchers Day (knees are currently too sketchy for long walks, ha!), so instead I did double duty, making an urban sketch of my local doughnut shop, and also fulfilling today's prompt from #theydrawtober, which was "donuts."

Uniball pen and watercolors in Bee Sketchbook.

Combining prompts

Yesterday's prompt from #theydrawtober (the foodie list) was "Autumn Salad," and today's was "Acorn Squash." Yesterday I didn't feel much like painting (I went and got a couple of vaccinations and had to sleep off the effects), but today I thought I would at least do the acorn squash. But I was interested in what the internet had to say about autumn salads, and when I looked them up there was one incorporating acorn squash! So, serendipity and a combo post.

The squash is sliced thin and roasted with a glaze of maple syrup, cumin, paprika, salt, and cayenne pepper; once it's cooled you toss it together with all the other ingredients: mixed greens, thinly sliced red onion (I would leave that out, can't tolerate it!), dried cranberries, toasted pecans, goat cheese, and a liberal garnish of pomegranate seeds. (If you're vegan, substitute avocado for the goat cheese. Better yet, just add avocado, since we all know that everything is better with avocado!)

The vinaigrette is apple cider vinegar with either maple syrup or honey as a sweetener, combined with olive oil, minced garlic, fresh lemon juice, a little salt, and some dijon mustard. Yeah!

"Acorn Squash Salad"—Uniball pen and watercolors in Bee sketchbook, about 9x8 inches.

If you're interested in the entire recipe (which sounds pretty yummy), here's the link:
https://www.adashofmegnut.com/roasted-acorn-squash-fall-salad/

Perhaps this will appear on the Thanksgiving dinner table...if we have Thanksgiving this year! If not, I'll make it for myself and tantalize other people with photos on Facebook.

Affirmation

I'm so touched that I wanted to share this. I finally, after more than six months, sold a portrait off my Etsy site. It was the pen-and-acrylic-inks portrait of Rachel Maddow, titled "Rachel tells it like it is," and has a quote from the subject about honesty (see below).

I painted it during my first flush of frantic activity after taking Deb Weiers's class and finding out about the versatility and brightness of acrylic inks. It was one of a number of public figures whose faces and quotes I wanted to share, but no one seemed to want to buy one and put it in their home...until now.

I hadn't looked on Etsy again since I made the sale and shipped the piece, but it was time to update, so I went there last night, and found this remark from the person who bought it:

"Perfectly perfect! What a wonderful work of art! BUY FROM THIS ARTIST!

"The work itself arrived in perfect condition! It was exactly as advertised and made a wonderful gift for my wife!

"To the artist: Simply put, this belongs in a museum. Do you know that? I hope you do. But while I don’t own any museums to display your work in, I CAN do the next best thing…

"I have a young daughter. She will grow up in a home with this piece, among others, framed on the walls of our home for years to come. Rachel’s words, through YOUR art, will be there to help influence her always. Tupac Shakur said, and I’m paraphrasing, I may not change the world but I will shape the mind of the one who WILL. This work of art, in the presence of a young girl, may be able to do exactly that! Thank you for the opportunity to own this!"

How great is THAT?

Strong Light

You never know where messing about will take you. I prepared this background last night for an assignment given last week on Let's Face It 2021. After it dried, I tried several times to draw the figure that was supposed to appear on it—it was a head-to-toe picture of a pensive woman in a long dress. I kept getting the head too small and the figure too tall, and after erasing it in frustration a few times I concluded that the real problem was that I was not invested at all in painting that picture! So I erased the pencil as best I could, and then painted several more layers of color over where I had drawn, figuring I would use the background someday, for something-or-other. Never waste good paint and expensive watercolor paper!

I have had a reference photo I liked sitting on my desktop for a couple of weeks now, except that the subject was wearing a flat cap and had a pony tail, and I didn't like either of those features. Today, I was once again looking at the photo, and realized two things: 1. This background, while not what I originally had in mind for that photo at all, would actually work nicely if I chose my colors properly; and 2. I could just find a model with a similar hairline and paint the hair I wanted onto this model! So I did a search, found the hair, and set to work.

Unlike last night's abortive attempt, I was able to draw this all in one go, in charcoal, with only a couple of small erasures. Amazing what happens when you really want to do something...

For once, I remembered to take some process pictures, so I have the charcoal drawing on the background, the palette, and a couple of WIP photos. I particularly wanted the photo of the palette, so that I could remember what colors I put out and used for this, since it was a new experience for me, painting a woman with dark skin color in acrylic. I'm well able to paint, overlay, and blend in watercolor to get just the perfect tints, but I didn't know whether I could translate that into acrylic.

 

I am really pleased with this portrait. Sometimes you paint something and realize that you have crossed a barrier of some kind, and this one took me across a couple. The main one was letting go of the compulsive need to blend everything and allowing it to be "painterly." The other, lesser one was realizing that I now have sufficient skill to combine reference photos to get the model I want, instead of relying on someone else's photographs.

 

"Strong Light"—charcoal pencil, acrylic paints, Stabilo All brown pencil, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, 12x16 inches.

I owe a lot to Emma Petitt, including how to make an interesting background and allow show-through to make the portrait more interesting as well; and also for showing me how to start with highlights and keep coming back round to them, selectively darkening up some and leaving the rest to show. It's tricky, and I'm beginning to get the hang of it. Thank you, Emma.