We had an English Model who is a modern dancer who travels and lives between Europe and here; I imagined I was painting a woman coming out of the lake, near Stonehenge – but I don’t think she comes from that part of the United Kingdom (she’s closer to Bath, if I recall what she was saying).

First time we had a paid model who was told to keep her clothes on; I’d have preferred she had taken them off – since I liked the model I painted her, else I’d not have bothered.

 

One thing with the model ….everything is there – nothing really needs to be invented – the human model has everything – all that’s needed is to extract what I want – that’s why I like painting models.   I also put in a woman I often see painting from the model with her drawing of the model in the lower right.

I took the painting to the adjacent room so I could look at it away from the setting it was done and my first thought was ..  the colors hit me from a distance – I want my paintings to hit the viewer before they even know what they’re looking at.  That seems to be something I’m achieving more often as I trust myself as a creator. 

I’m not sure my digital photo really captures the effect I’m talking about.  When I go to a museum and look at the painters I most admire, like Cezanne, Manet, Matisse, etc, often the colors have a power beyond the painting, they speak directly to the soul.  I try to allow that to happen in my work.  When I looked a this painting from 30 feet away – the colors spoke to me.   If that’s my gift, I try to stay with it…amplifying it ….letting it happen.

Also, a curious thing is beginning to happen, and I noticed it today. 

To step back a bit –  I often sketch, I carry little black sketchbooks that I spend several hours a week sketching in whenever I have spare time – it empties my mind and sets me a peace with myself – and often when I’m in turmoil – or just captures a feeling, I sketch.  

I’ve developed, or refined a cross-hatching approach that feels right to me and do most of my drawings that way – creating a lot of subtleties in tones and lines – all that I’m usually aware of, as I am sketching. 

I consider my sketches every bit as important as any other painting I do and I’d feel very sad if I lost a sketchbook as I put so much of myself into my sketches and my sketchbooks.

The curious thing that happened here – in the rainbow effect in the left part of the painting – I began cross hatching just as I do when I sketch with pen on paper. 

I used many colors rather than one pen color – and I noticed the cross hatching approach added an additional element to this painting today.

I tried to capture the spirit of this woman – European, Celtic (not sure if she really is of Celtic background or not – but as long as her features remind of that, who cares if she really is or not – it’s only what is in the artist’s mind and heart that really matter), almost as if she was Guinevere rising out of the Lake (or Lady of the Lake).    

A bright red shirt/blouse was my aim to fully capture – but I could not get all the bright reds that I wanted.

Overall, I was pleased with this work, only I would have rather painted her nude than clothed – but that was not my choice; a woman with a great body like hers ought to be painted nude, its more interesting that way, at least, to me.

After, I went into Manhattan, over to the Metropolitan, which will be the subject of another post and video.