Is it Done Yet?

What do you think?  I love the grissaille underpainting and fully intended to glaze in the skin tones but my sister said I should just leave it as it is.  Soooooo, I'm just putting it out for a day or two to see what ya'll think.  Hope you enjoy it.

Up Side Down

I started a new series a couple of days ago: hands.  I don't think I will ever have the fascination with them, the utter astonishment, that I have painting eyes.  I believe the eye PODs (painting o' day) has produced some of my best painting to date.  If that sounds like boasting, it surely isn't. The repetition of the subject has projected my technique to another level. I want to see if it has a cross-over effect on other subjects and since hands are nearly as emotive as eyes and expressly because they are difficult, I think it's a perfect project to undertake. The repetitive, persistent pursuit of something worthwhile and challenging.

The result of taking on a cognitive challenge is exhaustion!  Code-breaking, learning to 'see' what the eye sees and not what we think we see, is mind-bending work.  I finished an under painting yesterday without too much difficulty, except that it took me two days to complete.  Today, whilst waiting for the first one to dry, I ran outside to Tim's studio with my iPad and shot a video of him throwing a cup.  I snapped some snaps from the video and found one that looks promising. After working only about an hour and a half, I felt exhaustion creeping in (body fatigue resulting from mental fatigue.)  I realized that I was messing it up!  In frustration and desperation, I did the only thing that helps at times like these:  I turned both the iPad and the canvas panel upside down!!! After another hour and a half I am safely on the right track.  I decided to leave it for the day, clean up and play in my greenhouse for awhile. Here is the under painting, upside down.

Best Buddies

After I posted this I saw something I could not live with: Chester's eye was too low on his face, making him look like a cow! I also added the halter for contrast. I hope this is better.














I'm not done with my Eye PODs but I thought I'd try something different. This is a portrait of my brother Bud's hands which are caressing the nose of his favorite horse in the whole world.  Bud raised Chester from a foal and these two are best, best buddies. You can see the sublime satisfaction in Chester's eye.  I think the next one in this series will be Bud's expression! I also had to paint this compositions because I discovered, when I cropped the photo, that Bud has my dad's hands (sigh).  Hope you enjoy it.