Urgh!!

It feels like I paint best when I am along in my basement studio. This is frustrating because there are times I would like to paint around live human beings and even talk or interact with them. For reason, my brain goes into overload and I am rarely happy with anything I create in the presence of others. I will keep trying.

All of that is a long way of saying that a friend and I got together to paint yesterday and I was unhappy with my work. In thinking about what went wrong, I switch over to painting the object rather than the values and the shapes and I went painted without thinking. This is a bad habit, which creeps up periodically. It seems like there should be a formula to express the amount of time for thinking beforehand versus the time your brush spends on the surface. At a minimum, I need to remember to be deliberate, whether that is before each paint stroke or by formulating an overall plan before starting. Auto-pilot does not work.

This morning I started fresh. I kept my drawing to a minimum, focusing on major value changes.

Another relationship I will explore forever is the one between the essential versus the details. When I do these simple value drawings it amazes me how much can be communicated with so little.  It always makes me stop and think - - what is essential here - - what is the minimum that is needed? I have trouble staying in this place, since I also love the fussy little details in life. 

Before I picked up my brush, I stopped and thought about what I wanted for this painting and why I was drawn to the source photo. The reason was the drama. I took the source picture of Chandler when the light at dusk was hitting his face in a very appealing and dramatic manner. I decided to start with his eyes, which I will adjust at the end. Next up was getting the lightest lights represented. The color of the lightest lights is not quite right, since these parts glowed in the picture. I don't want to over-paint this one, so I am going to try and leave it "as is". A painting represents many, many choices and I don't see how anyone can ever be happy with all of his or her choices. In the darkest areas, I wanted to suggest and not over paint, so I did a little of that.

Here is the start.