Posts made in December, 2008

"Mystery Artist," an oil poirtrait of an unknown artist by Lesley Spanos. ©2008, all rights reserved.

“?”
Acrylic on Raymar canvas panel, 9 x 12″

Who is this lovely mystery woman with the bright smile? As I write this, I don’t yet know.  I was paired with her through the luck of the draw. Artist Karin Jurik came up with a fun year-end challenge on her Different Strokes From Different Folks blog.  One-hundred and thirty artists sent her photos of themselves, and she paired each of us with a partner to paint. So while I’m painting this artist from her photo, she’s painting me from mine.  In the end we’ll find out each others identity and perhaps trade the portraits.

My apologies to the Mystery Artist! I captured a little of your sparkle, but I didn’t manage to capture your look.

UPDATE, December 31: Now the mystery artist has a name:  Sally Tharp! I’ve admired her art on her blog before. So nice to put a personality and name with the face. Check out her gorgeous portrait of me on her blog. She had a tough photo of me to work from, with lots of shadows, but she did amazing things with it. Her use of light and color really blew me away! It’s like me, only better.

Here are a few in-progress images:

Sketched directly on the canvas with ink.

Next an underpainting in acrylic is added. I went heavy on the green so it would contrast with the skin tones:

The underpainting is done.  If I knew this person wouldn’t mind it as is, I might be tempted to leave it like this. But not everyone likes having a green face! So I forge on, now switching to oils:

Hmm, that green t-shirt and yellow background aren’t working for me. Let’s change them:

Much better! (BTW, I didn’t realize until later that I was wearing a purple t-shirt when I painted this.)

The reference photo was taken with a flash, so there were no shadows. You can always tell when someone has painted from a flash photo, so I struggled to make it more portrait-like by shadowing the face.

I had all my colors turned up to 11 on this one, and I’m thinking now that maybe the red was too much.

Done!

But is any painting ever really done? There are things I would change if I lived on a deserted island and had only that one painting and all the time in the world to refine it. But I don’t. I have to take what I can learn from each project, and move on to the next challenge.

"Gogh All The Way," an oil painting of boots by Lesley Spanos. ©2008, all rights reserved.

“Gogh All The Way”
12 x 9 oil painting on Raymar canvas panel

When I saw Karin Jurick’s photo for this week’s Different Strokes challenge, I saw a modern version of Vincent van Gogh’s “A Pair of Shoes.” It can’t be a coincidence that they were so similar to the boots he painted in 1885, right down to the odd horizontal composition. Can it?

"A Pair Of Shoes" by Vincent Van Gogh c. 1885. Public domain image.

So I thought – with a nod to Eric Carmen -  if I’m going to paint this image , “please, let’s Gogh all the way!” As you can tell from my last post, I’ve been on a Vincent kick lately. Copying famous artists wasn’t part of my art education,  so I’m filling in that gap now.

I love boots! Putting all the nasty things like global warming,  economic crisis, and torturous high heels aside, aren’t we lucky to be alive right now? Our feet are so pampered in our modern work boots. We have a nice padded collar and tongue,  stiff ankle support, a steel shank, and a protective toe,  not to mention the modern miracle of our time, wicking socks! I don’t think I’d last the morning in van Gogh’s floppy, ill-fitting boots.

Ever notice how van Gogh’s shoe and boot paintings are among his most somber? Perhaps when he was stuck indoors with nothing to paint but shoes he was at his unhappiest. No sad boots for me! I expressed my boot-love with a cheerier palette.

Lately I’ve been getting too tense and tight when I paint, so I made myself dive in without a sketch or even any real plan.  I turned on some music (the Raspberries, even) and danced with the paint while wearing my new snow boots. OMG, they are so comfy! I think I will end up wearing them in the house more than outside.

Here’s how the painting went, from start to finish:

Notice how the perspective is off? I did that intentionally, because van Gogh’s perspective was usually twisted. It drove me a little nuts, though.

"Winter Corn," an oil painting by Lesley Spanos. © 2008, all rights reserved.

“Winter Corn”
Oil painting on panel, 10 x 8″
A farm in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania

Ever start something one way, just to have it turn into something entirely different? That’s what happened with this painting. It meandered into something else of its own accord, and I just went along for the ride.

I’ve noticed while browsing the blogs of Different Strokes artists that some also do another event called Virtual Sketch Date. It’s similar to Different Strokes: An image is posted, and artists have a week to create their interpretation of it. I hope the VSD folks don’t mind me dropping in! I also hope I’m doing this right and didn’t take too much artistic license with the photo. If you want to see the reference image and all the cool art that was created from it, check out the site here.

This is how the painting began. I started with an orange-ish ground, so I could lay down the snow in the field first, then scratch out the corn stalks. Plus I like the warmth of an orange ground peeking through cold snow.

I worked on it for an hour or so, but the more I painted, the more it didn’t look like me. It looked like a bad copy of a Thomas Kinkade painting, all goopy and sentimental and nostalgic, like a glitter-dusted Christmas card my grandmother would love. But as much as I hated it, I was going to leave it alone and post it, because they can’t all be winners, right?

Well, the next day, I couldn’t stand looking at it. “It’s already a mess, so I’ll just declare it a total loss and play with it.” Feeling a lot less pressure than before, I started stabbing at the canvas with a bristle filbert and lots more paint than I usually use. I’ve had Van Gogh on my mind lately and it was looking a little Van Gogh-ish, so I expanded on that theme. I know there will be people who prefer the first version, but I’m much happier with this one.

Here’s the painting earlier in the process during the second session. I’m not sure if it’s night or day in my scene. My light got a little confused, but the painting is really pretty the way it is, and I’ll take pretty over accurate any day.

Since I piled on a lot more paint than I usually do, I’m not sure how long it will have to dry before I can ship it. It will be available on Boundless Gallery when it’s ready for $125 with free shipping in the US. (International shipping at actual rates.) If you think you might be interested email me using the Contact form and I’ll let you know when it’s posted for sale.