OK I think this painting is done (persephone's rose, oil)

Final finished version. I decided to go for more realism in the face and I like it way better. And from now on I'm letting the painting decide when it's finished--it knows far better than I do.

"Persephone's Rose" 5x7 oil on panel (canvas on hardboard).

WIP Stage two: True to my vision despite similarities

WIP stage two. Acrylic on 12x12 canvas. No title for this piece as of yet.

There are several images I've used consistently throughout the years such as a checkerboard, a fish, and figures in weird hats. Checkerboards, fish, and figures with strange headgear are also used extensively by an artist whose work I greatly admire. I mulled this over a lot and finally decided that since I was already using these images in clay and in watercolor over many years, and since my full intent is to create my own original vision, that it was OK to continue with them in paintings. So I put all three in this painting to challenge myself to use them and still present my own vision. I think I have succeeded. By the way, the fish has something the cat and heron both want--besides a nice fillet!

Work in Progress, new Grisaille, acrylic profile to be glazed in oils

Work in Progress, 12 x 12 inches on canvas. This underpainting is done in arylics, using violet oxide by Golden. Love that color! I've done other underpaintings with it. It will be glazed in oils once the underpainting is completed.

 The figure is from a photo I took of a professional model during a painting studio I go to weekly. My photos many times come out just a little blurred, but they are still useful for painting. Working from a photo presents other challenges: the camera can distort proportions, and the lighting can come out way different from how you remember the scene, so those things have to be compensated for. I never used to want to work from photos, but now I have a whole collection of ones I took. I find they are useful but be careful not to get caught up in them! That's where imagination and memory come to the rescue. 

When I scanned this, it was too big for the scanner bed, so I did it in 2 pieces. When I pasted the 2 pieces together one was darker than the other, so I used Levels in Photoshop to match them in color. Then I blurred the seam line in places where it still showed to stitch the 2 halves together.

Persephone's Rose (oil painting version)

"Persephone's Rose" 5x7

I decided to try this one in oil, using the grisaille with glazes. Again, I got a little too alla prima with it, but I'm getting better at glazing every time I do it. Click to see the acrylic version, which I no longer have, being as how I entered it in the 5x7 show at ArtHouse.

The other one had a more generic looking flower and this time I wanted a specific kind of blossom, so I chose a rose. Her expression looks a lot more intense in this one, too.

As to re-doing one's own ideas, as long as it stays fresh, sure, why not? I'm having fun with this bird lady theme.

The myth of Persephone is that Hades, king of the underworld, wanted a wife, and so he put a flower in a meadow that Persephone frequented. When she went to pick the flower he kidnapped her and took her to the underworld, where she became his Queen after eating a pomegranate. If she hadn't eaten the fruit she would have been able to go home, but then we wouldn't have winter (so if global warming is any indication, we will have to ask Queen P to kindly return to the Hades to cool things off).

Finished Iris Still Life (Glazed Grisaille Oil Painting)

"Irises" oil on canvas, 8x10.

Got this one finished, glazes and all. Since this was my very first attempt at glazing, it got a bit alla prima towards the end. Some of my initial underpainting got too well covered.

In the past few weeks I've been reading "How To Paint Like the Old Masters" by Joseph Sheppard, and it has helped tremendously. Very informative book. If you want to glaze in oil paints, this is definitely one to read.

Even though I enjoyed painting this still life, and I know that the straight realism has tremendous appeal, I'm pretty much set on my course of doing the fantastical genre. However, I'm determined on conquering realism because the style/genre I want to paint in demands it, and if I ever get skilled enough in realism to match my imagination, that would be highly gratifying!

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