abstracted

This piece started out as an abstract, and then it wanted to become a flower. It's funny how the paint leads the way sometimes.

Peony
51 x 61cm
oil on canvas

$450 (includes shipping)

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studio sale -- day 6

More hands! I used to draw my hands in Calculus class in high school instead of taking notes, so naturally I had to make a living at something involving drawn hands rather than advanced math.

This piece was inspired by my painter friend, Kozuki Watanabe, who does these washy fields of color with lovely contour drawing-esque linear shapes and figures... I gave it a go with some diluted paint and drawings of hands I already had, because of Calculus.

She also inspired me to be more thoughtful and deliberate about my titles, and this one captures my fascination with hands and their gestural intimate communication.

"A Human Instrument"

16 x 20 in

oil and mixed media on canvas

$550 $350 (+ $50 shipping)

studio sale -- day 5

I made this piece when we lived in Kyoto a few years ago. I was so taken with the color combinations of the koi fish in all the many temple gardens, especially the ones with red and black splotches on creamy white and pink. Perfect little swimming works of art.

"Ripen and Fall"

24 x 31 inches

oil on canvas

$750 $450 (+ $50 shipping)

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studio sale -- day 4

I started doing these color daub abstracts after some fitful portraits when I realized I liked the composition on my wiping rag better than what was on the canvas... I thought whoa, I can MAKE THIS THE CANVAS. 

It's so fun and so freeing to work with straight color in an unstructured composition. It's almost like a musical composition: the notes have to harmonize, there has to be lots of space, and the drama has to come at just the right moment.

"It's the Stillness That Wakes You"

18 x 21 inches

oil on canvas

$500 $350 (+$15 shipping)

studio sale -- day 2

This is an abstract based on the design on a pottery shard I found in Kyoto -- I used to find them everywhere, the conspicuous blue and white peeking out from gravel and gray pebbles. They were like little winks, I see you, I'm with you.

"Talisman"

9x12 in

oil on canvas

$175 (+$10 shipping)

 SOLD

seed of the next

"... the seed for your next work lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece."

-- David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear

Or, keep going. Or, experiments grow from experiments. Or, yes, more please.

experimenting

I am afraid of making mistakes.

I tell my artist friends, There are no mistakes! And then I'm still afraid of making mistakes.

So then I don't take risks and I stick to what I know, because the other option -- the possibility of mistakes option -- is so uncomfortable.

What a waste of time.
What a waste of paint.
This is not going to go anywhere.
This doesn't mean anything. 
What are you even doing.

I'M EXPERIMENTING.

An old friend of mine once said, "you'll know it's exciting because it will feel exciting."

Let the excitement be bigger than the fear. 

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holiday sale!

Portraits of your kids, parents, pets, or friends make amazing and lasting holiday gifts!

I'm holding a contest for the chance to win an original 8 x 10" painting (in oil, on archival paper) of the subject of your choice, at the promotional price of $150 / £120 (normal price is $250 / £200).

I will select three names at random from the comments, and the winners will be announced Sunday, October 30th!

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nancy jean

Clearing away some cobwebs, trying to make time at the easel, trying to find the rhythm of work with an 8-month old baby: things don't usually get done on time, in the right order, or according to plan. I approach everything with the same sleep-deprived urgent ferocity: sew Auden's Halloween costume, make list of portraits to paint, get into fights with racist strangers on Facebook, MAKE DINNER. 

Instead, here's a piece I did last winter and never got around to posting:

It's much bigger than my usual portraits, so I mapped out a grid on the canvas to render the composition. My first layer of flesh tones was a bit too green or gray or just kind of sickly-looking...

But the next layer resolved nicely:

"Nancy Jean"

20x20"

Oil on canvas

I was so taken with the tiny brightness of pink in her lip, and how it echoed in her cheek and above her eye. I wanted everything to hinge on that. It's funny how the most important part of a painting takes the lightest touch. 

Maybe I'll apply the same wisdom to my to-do list.

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personality

I don't know what it is about working on paper, but the paint is really enjoying itself... It's like the materials have totally different personalities. The paper is receptive, forgiving, immediate. I spend way less time mixing paint on the surface; I just lay in the pigment quickly, so the brushstrokes end up being more visible and more alive, somehow. 

I loved working on this brother-sister pair -- their eyes are so gorgeous and animated! Amazing how the paint, in its spontenaity, can capture the light in them.

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happy new year!

Let's charge into 2016 like this little guy -- eyes and mouths wide and smiling!

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wild guess

I used to really fret about doing anything in pairs or multiples, because I was so afraid they wouldn't match enough... as in, what if one turned out really good and the other was just so-so? 

Each new painting is a wild guess, and it feels a little damning to admit that... It's impossible to predict which piece is going to sing and which one is going to blow raspberries. But over time it really is quantity that matters, and I have been churning out portraits in the last four months. Do a bunch of work all at once, and there is bound to be some consistency. 

And I also appreciate now that every piece doesn't have to "match" -- they are their own people as much as they are their own paintings. 

Still, don't these sisters look gorgeous together?

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sweet spot

I have been thoroughly enjoying myself with these recent portraits, and it's not just because they all happen to be dumpling-cheeked babies and I am fully under the spell of besotting pregnancy hormones -- although that probably helps. 

I think it's that I have stumbled upon an ideal combination of size, materials, and time invested. 

Paper takes paint in a totally different way than canvas or board, and I've found that I do a lot less mixing on the surface. Instead, I'm making a stronger commitment to each brushstroke, and using fewer brushstrokes over all. In other words, I AM NOT FIDDLING SO MUCH. 

And since I only work in the deceptively short hours that my kids are in school, it is incredibly satisfying to finish a whole portrait in one sitting. 

This has also freed me up to stay unattached -- if it doesn't turn out, I can scrap it and start over, instead of feeling compelled to return and fix the places where I went wrong (ie: FIDDLE). But so far, amazingly, I haven't scrapped any of them. 

Dare I say it? I found the sweet spot. 

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sisters three

I recently finished a portrait of the third daughter of a friend of mine, and it's turned into yet another opportunity to observe my changing styles...

Here was the first one I did, in 2012:

A year later, I did then-baby-sister:

And here's number 3, at about the same age:

I did try to match the color schemes and brushwork to a certain extent, but paintings are like rivers and you can never step in the same one twice. 

As I worked on this last one, I loved seeing the obvious resemblence in the youngest sister to her older siblings, even though each of them have their own sweet and distinct spirit. Catching a particular subject, at a moment in their development, at a moment in my development -- the painting is bound to reflect that, too.

That's the magic trick of portaiture for me: I never set out to capture a personality, I am only concerned with light and shape and color. The expression, the individual, the life force is already there.

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beginning and becoming

Three years ago I started painting portraits as a job.

(Is it too soon to look back ponderously?)

I had spent the previous winter sewing slippers for peanuts and arbitrarily slapping paint on canvases rescued from RISD's garbage, while being full of angst about having two kids in daycare and not a lot of creative progress to justify it. Jason suggested I return to figurative painting (the quiet sub-text of which was, these recent abstracts are not going anywherrrrrre), which I had studied with some success in college.

So I did a very small and very quick sketch of Auden, and decided that was enough to build a business on. Here:

I mean, it's not horrible, as sketches go, but it's also not exactly something to write home about, let alone launch an entirely new career idea from. But! You cannot interpret an artist's vision using logic.

After that, I did this portrait (that looks uncannily like a very young VanGogh) for some friends of ours:

And even though I was using old splayed brushes and had no plan whatsoever, I thought, I'm on my way! 

You can picture the following year as a montage of flurried brushstrokes, agonized head-clutching, and weepy self-doubt, on maddening repeat. (Did you ever see that awful movie about Modigliani, 

starring Andy Garcia? I was like Soutine with the "Madness" painting. Or was it a cow carcass?) I struggled so much with each piece, but could never admit it for fear of insulting my clients or revealing myself as a total charlatan.

But, as I read somewhere in something, you learn how to work by working. 

Three years later, I'm here:

And even though I can see that I've gotten better, I also feel like I have SO MUCH more to learn, and so many other things I want to try. I look around at other artists' work and think, damn, I want to do it like that. I want to get there.

It just recently occurred to me that the reaching feeling is never going to go away. I've been blundering toward a vague notion of success -- that shifting destination -- thinking that once I get there I won't have to try so hard anymore, or be so vulnerable or unsure anymore. Basically, I won't have to be stuck with myself anymore. 

But I keep coming along! 

Auden was maybe four years old in that first sketchy attempt. Now he's 7, and is shedding and gaining teeth like a shark. His mouth is a jumble of haphazard angles and gaps, and the other day I caught myself wanting to hurry up and see his finished smile (and also fretting about the inevitable orthodonture)... But THIS is it, you know? This imperfect moment on the way.

I can't get out of it, and neither can my painting. I want to hurry up and arrive, and be done with the awkward fits and starts of becoming, but really, each piece is only the final version of that one step in the process. And it's all process.

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loosen up

A couple of months ago, I offered a sale on Instagram (@robindanely, if you're so inclined) for the kind of quick study I usually do as practice before the finished piece. I figured out that I like to do these the most, since they are usually devoid of the hair-pulling that can accompany the Real Thing. Somehow I can let them be more impressionistic and less precise, and I can stop before I overwork them and kill everything that makes them interesting.

So, basically, this is what I have to do to psych myself out of my perfectionism so I can enjoy what I'm doing. 

Here's the first one:

I'm so please with the way it turned out... the colors are soft, the brushstrokes expressive and uncomplicated. Honestly I think sometimes I just luck out and everything comes together. 

(And also, to be fair, this was an absolutely dreamy image to work with -- the light! That coy half-smile!)

I'm excited to do more, so don't be shy if you want one of your very own. 

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très belle

 I do spend an awful lot of time trawling other people's blogs and taking their images to make into paintings. But, really, can you blame me? With this many beautiful and talented women in the world? I do ask permission first.

Here is the lovely Tracey Steer at Grumble Girl, rocking a fur hat and mesmerizing you with that gaze:

 

 

Some people have faces that want to be painted, and Tracey's is one... dark eyes, full lips, bone structure like a statue. I loved the detail of the watch, too, and how it bounced that tiny little reflection onto her jaw. 

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