I suck. So I did a value study instead.

In the process of painting, one comes to realize that it’s just not happening. That canvas is fighting you all the way. It’s taunting you. Calling you names. Dripping hot wax on your nipples and bustin’ out the hot pokers. Then it gets nasty. But we won’t go there.

What matters is that I just couldn’t seem to get anything to work in the painting I was working on today, which I can’t show you until the surprise is sprung. Anyway, I got pics and everything to show just how bad it got. Yes, I documented my shame. And I’m going to share it with you when I can (after Jan 31).

So… I persevered and kept at it and suddenly I realized I’d lost it. Not my mind; I lost that years ago. I lost the painting. It got away from me, a naked child running away and laughing. So I grabbed my palette knife and scraped the whole damned thing down, then rubbed it down with a turpentine-soaked paper towel.

I’ll teach you to run away, you little bastard!

Remember that I preserved the charcoal drawing with fixative, so I was essentially down to a toned canvas with my drawing. Square one, for all intents and purposes. Sigh.

I stood back and decided that I wasn’t going to admit defeat. Not me. Not today. I was going to do a value study. It was the color and the values that were getting the better of me. So I did the value study. And it came out great. But it’s in oil and I want to paint some more tomorrow night… so, um, I don’t know what to do with it now. No way it’ll be dry for about a month. I got a pic of it and I think I may chalk it up  to learning and move on. I have another canvas prepped but I decided to go bigger at the last moment.

The reference photo just isn’t working for me. It’s all browns – you can’t see any of the richness of the flesh, the underlying veins or rouge of the cheeks or any vibrancy in the shadows. So I’m struggling to basically paint a portrait in a series of yellows, oranges, and browns. LOTS of browns. And I don’t like it.

I might just throw caution to the wind and make the best of a bad reference photo by going hyper-creative and pushing an extreme coloring of the portrait. Or do something similar to my self-portrait series and go completely random and push my own style. I had wanted to do another really good, realistic portrait but I think I’m going to have to put that on the back burner because I don’t want to do a brown portrait.

Or, and this is an idea, I can tweak the value study with splotches of color here and there. Maybe draw a horizontal band and “colorize” that area. Hmm. That would work. And I’ve been itching to use some of my bench warmer paints. Hmm. I think I just helped myself figure out a solution. Thanks, self!