A Couple of Artworks

Here are two artworks that started in our weekly life drawing sessions.  In both, I got to a certain point, didn't like it, wiped it out, and started over.  Both wound up being muted and quiet, which in these cases is a pretty good quality, I think.

This was the first one, a portrait of Apryl.  I started it in charcoal and let the drawing tell me what it wanted.  From the very first, it wanted to be quiet.  I worked on getting the drawing right, but wasn't successful.  Well, it was kinda close, but not there, so I wiped it out and started over on the same sheet.  This time, I saw some of what was wrong and corrected it.  Then I began working with the pastels.  Here's where the drawing's demands for quiet really showed up.  It didn't want strong reds and yellows in the skin tones, and didn't want strong reddish-browns in the hair.  So I kept the colors barely there.  At the end of the night, it looked pretty good, but the likeness still wasn't quite right.  I took a couple of reference photos and, a few days later (with a fresh viewpoint), I reworked it.  It really didn't take much: the face was very slightly too long and her mouth was a bit too far down.  Two hours of work and this was done.  

This drawing of Emma was started in our most recent life drawing session.  It was another artwork that told me from the get-go that it wanted to be quiet.  I blocked in the figure in charcoal, then developed it to a higher level than what you see now.  It was still relatively un-developed, though - nothing was brought up to what most people consider "finished" except maybe in the face.  Then I brought in the pastels and messed it up.  The colors were too harsh.  So, one hour into a two-hour session, I wiped it out.  This left a lot of marks on the paper that I thought were interesting.  I re-developed only a few areas of the drawing in charcoal, primarily the face and shoulder.  Then I brought in the pastels, only with a very light touch, and gave her some skin tones in the head shoulders, and parts of her arms.  A couple of days later, I did some alterations: scrubbing some areas down, bringing the shapes and darks and colors up in other areas, and adding a touch of color in the background to help set her off.  Sounds simple, but it took all afternoon before it felt like it was really done.

I'm really liking the effect of the muted colors and "incomplete" drawings.  There's less specifics here, which means that you, the viewer, have to bring more of your own ideas to the artwork.  Less "telling" on my part, more "suggesting".  There's a tension between the developed and undeveloped areas that I like.  I might be on to something here.  Or not - check back in a few months!

Destroying Artworks

Yesterday, I was working away in the studio on several different projects.  One of them was trying to decide what to do about one particular artwork.  It was a charcoal and pastel portrait that has been sitting there for a few weeks.  I didn't like it.  It was overworked, had a somewhat awkward composition, and had been a fight since the very beginning.  The young woman who was the subject had liked it.  So, rather than trash the artwork right away, it sat in a corner for a while.  Maybe I'd give it to her.  Maybe I shouldn't.  I kept kicking the decision down the road.

I trashed it yesterday.

That's not the first time.  Actually, I trash a fairly large proportion of my works, maybe 50%.  Which brings up the question, why?  Why throw away something that has a lot of time and effort put into it, especially when somebody appreciates it?  Why throw away so much work?

Well, I look at something and ask myself, would I be willing to exhibit that work?  Exhibiting something means that I'm comfortable with putting my name on an artwork and telling the world, "this is what I can do".  If it doesn't meet that standard, there are two choices: change it or destroy it.  Otherwise, it's just another substandard thing that's cluttering up my studio, and trust me, I have enough things cluttering up my studio right now.  Hell, I could put on three simultaneous shows of my own work at any one time.  So adding stuff that I wouldn't want others to see is not something I want to do.

Regarding changing an artwork, yes, I do that sometimes.  Usually it fails, but  it works out occasionally.  A successful change requires me to get into the right mindset.  It sounds corny, but I have to be "one with the painting", meaning the painting and my brain have to be in synch.  If not, it'll be a failure.  The painting also has to have an underlying composition that works and a subject that's interesting.  Just like you can't fix a house with a bad foundation, you can't fix a painting that has a bad composition.

And if I decide a painting has failed?  Two options.  One, sand it down and then slap a coat of oil primer on it.  That gives me a new blank canvas.  Or, if I've already done that a time or two and have decided that this particular canvas is jinxed, it goes into the trash.

And, as for that young woman who liked the artwork that I later destroyed, well, sorry.  Even if I gave it to her, I'd know that there was a substandard piece of art out there with my name on it.  That's intolerable. 

And, yeah, I'll probably give her one of the other artworks where she's the subject ...