For this Throwback Thursday, I looked through old posts and found this portrait which I used on my first business cards. I think it might be time to find a new image for my business cards. Any suggestions? I am thinking a pet portrait this time. Please leave a comment in the reply box below this blog post. Many thanks!
“We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea. Without words they respond through the rustling of leaves and the moving of clouds and the murmuring of the sea.” Paul Tillich.
“She speaks without voice”.
I struggled with a title for this portrait. She appears to be saying something with her intent eyes and so there you have it, “she speaks without voice”.
Initially, this was going to be a little fun piece of only an hour or so to complete, a journal experiment while my granddaughter painted a project of her own on a snowy Sunday afternoon.
HA! Gross miscalculation as I spent more than eight hours on this red-haired witch!
Many artists I follow on Instagram post new work on a daily basis. Something in my genetic makeup makes me want to pick at each detail in my paintings especially the portraits. In my mind the painting should be simple but it never is.
Just when I think I am ready to publish a portrait, I find something new to rework. Hubby rolls his eyes and sighs as I run down the stairs to my art room, one more time. And then many more times.
Then he examines the revised painting and doesn’t see the improvement. I don’t care. I know that I see it and I feel better.
With time, I am learning that it’s ok to take a risk.
See the paint drippings in her hair? I really love that but what if it hadn’t worked? When I was ready to add hair to the bald portrait I initially posted on Facebook, I had already spent eight hours on her face!
It would have been a momentary disaster, but I would have gotten over it.
If the piece didn’t turn out, I still gained the benefits of having worked on the portrait, right?
Check these other portraits at Louise’s ARTiculations.
When childhood is left behind too soon…
How I make art when time is limited
When eyes see things much too far
