Sculpture and Painting

Painting is easier than sculpture. If you don't like something, you start over by painting it out.

Mark saw the portrait at this stage, loved the portrait and hated the shapes surrounding her.

Luckily he was able to articulate why and what he wanted instead. You can see the pencil marks for the new shapes. We looked at the Mucha book to see how often he used off centered circles as framing devices.

It's a funny place in the making of any artwork where the desire to finish it confronts the desire to make it better. 

It's time for the hard questions: What does it need? and How do I do what it needs?

After painting in the new surround, I made a list. See if you can spot the changes between the image at the top and the finished portrait.

Here's my list:
1. rotate left eye to have same focus as the right eye.
2. Shift highlight on nose to the right.
3. Push the background further back with a raw umber glaze.
4. Make the blue a little duller, also with a raw umber glaze. Dark stars bright periwinkle.
5. Step up her coloring to hold its own against the background and the newly added gold.
6. Vary the line thickness on her left shoulder.
7. Repaint (several times!) that orchid at her cheek.

Mark wanted stars. I wanted them to be quiet and slightly irregular but not chaotic. The easiest way wast to make a stencil so that there would be an underlying relationship between the stars. Here's the stencil.

And here is the completed painting installed in the custom oak door made by Mark Downing.