Starting a New Painting

Sometimes it just comes to you.  You can't predict when it will come again, if ever again, so you dare not ignore it.  You just listen to it and trust it.  'It' is that voice inside your head that says, "I MUST paint that."  That phrase could just as easily be replaced with a number of other phrases such as "I must draw that," "I must write a song about that," "I must make an interpretive dance about that," or "I must write a satirical play about that."  Whatever the medium may be, when inspiration comes to create something, DO IT!

So when I took a weird photo of Madeline and the urge to paint it came as soon as I saw it, I prepared myself for a new oil painting.  Luckily, I now have a wonderful work area in which to more easily create a painting!

The photo inspiration

stage 1

stage 2

Normally, I make my underpainting in burnt umber but I decided to make this one with a more vibrant color.  I remembered from one of my painting classes at MICA called 'Pushing Color' that our teaching highly suggested for a colorful image to make our underpaintings in colors other than the neutrals.  This underpainting is in Phthalo Blue which is much more vibrant than other blues out of the tube.

I'll post more photos of this in progress whenever I get another chance to work on it during my busy schedule.

Here is a figure drawing from last week's class at CityArts Cooperative.

15 minutes

Shadows are fun.