04/30/2005: "Go cry yerself to sleep on your giant oversized pillow"

It was another sunny gorgeous day, decided to take out the recycling and stop by the store to pick up an aerator for the garden. I ran into my friend Julie who models for me a lot. She stopped in the middle of the store and let me take a couple photos of her face at 3/4 view, so I could use it to fix my woman fiddling if field painting.

I came home and spent all afternoon working on it, and at about 7pm I realized her head was giganticly out of porportion to the rest of her body. The face I had painted over was too small, like one of Dio's pin heads...only not in a good way.

So finally, I was able to paint her with a normal, human sized head. Once I got the size of the head right, the face was really easy to paint.

Replies: 4 Comments

on Sunday, May 1st, RR said

Sounds good :D

on Sunday, May 1st, Elise said

Yah, it *was* good, until I woke up this morning and magically the head seems too big again.

I swear this painting is haunted.

Now I have to decide if I can live with it, or if I need to totally repaint the head a 4th time! I'm just afraid that if I do, it will suddenly seem too small again.

what to do, what to do?

on Monday, May 2nd, RR said

Ho hum :doze:
It is a problem. I started a painting at home yesterday (I rarely do this, normally most of the work is done in the college studios) I worked on an idea I had, did a few sketches, started painting - acrylics - but as usual I overdid the bits I liked and don't know where to go with the rest. I still need the reassurance of a tutor standing behind me encouraging me to find the "right" solutions. I'm going to keep working on it though because I like the idea. I just don't know how to get it looking how I see it! To make things worse, today is a national holiday - apart from at my work :(

on Monday, May 2nd, Elise said

I know I bitch about this all the time, but I really do need better lighting in my studio area. I think the problem is that I keep working late into the night in dim lighting and things look great and then in the light of day I can see all the places I F*$#!! up.

Anyway, I decided to paint the face over again. If something is really bothering you about a piece, you have to fix it or it will bother you forever. I ended up painting her head 2 more times and now it finally looks good both at night and in the harsh reality of daylight.

As for your piece, have you considered posting it in flickr to let people give you some tips on how to finish it? Or is this something you need to work through on your own?