Art at the library

The Head Scarf. Charcoal, 16 x 25 inches. 

On Saturday, I hung some of my portrait drawings and paintings at the Joshua Tree public library. The work will be up for several months, so if you happen to stop in to get a new book, take a look and let me know what you think. I will be giving a talk about creating a portrait from life on March 3rd at 12:30pm in the library. I am hoping to find someone to make a video of my talk, for those of you who are far away. The drawing above is one of fourteen pieces in the show.

I have been hard at work in the studio, and hopefully, I will be able to post some photos of the new work this week. I find that once I am in the studio, nothing else gets done. No blog posts are written, no dishes are washed, no trash is taken out,...nothing. I will stay in there with brushes and painting knives in hand until I am too tired to paint anymore. How fortunate I am to be able to lose myself in my work! I know this blog has been neglected, and at times I am tempted to give it up entirely. It is only your comments and emails that keep me writing. Thank you all, for your encouragement, my dear readers.

A gift for you - some more photos of our beloved Joshua Tree.

Spring Already?

Well, according to the Joshua Trees near my neighbor's house, it is. I wasn't sure there would be any blooms on the trees this year, since it has been so dry. I noticed these on a walk with Pono last week, and now I have my eyes on high alert every time I pass a Joshua Tree. So far, I have only seen three trees with buds or blooms.

These photos were taken with my phone. 

We also have the wind, which seems to be another, much-less-loved harbinger of spring in the desert. It just arrived today, and is causing me to want to hole up indoors, under a blanket.

I was attacked by a not-so-nice head cold/flu last week, and spent a couple of days flat on my back. I rarely get sick, and I must say, now I know why I try to hard to be healthy. YUCK! Unfortunately, the studio time suffered as much as I did, and there isn't much new work to show you. I did manage to complete another portrait for a show at the Joshua Tree public library which is going up next week. I will be spending this week framing the drawings and wiring the backs of the canvases. So exciting! I am looking forward to this show, since many of the works have never been shown before, and I haven't really had a show with all of my figurative work together. A big thank you goes out to Marjorie Franklin, for all of her help organizing it.

A recently finished oil painting of the lovely Erin Michner, which will be in the library show.

Happy almost Valentine's Day, everyone!

Tattoos

Not quite finished....

I am planning to show a collection of my portrait paintings and drawings at the public library here in Joshua Tree next month, and I wanted to have a couple of new paintings in the show. For the first time EVER, I painted a portrait entirely from a photograph. Usually, I paint from a live sitting, and if I use a photo, it is only to finish the painting. It's always good to try new things. This is what I learned:

1.Working from a photograph is so much easier than working from life (why haven't I tried it sooner?)
2. I think I CAN paint believable tattoos now
3. it is easier to get a likeness when working from a  photograph
4. I don't ever want to paint a t-shirt with words on it ever again. (especially not upside down words.)
5. I find noses very challenging

The other part about the weekend's portrait painting that was a revelation was because of those tattoos and the t-shirt. I had finished everything else about the painting, and I was avoiding the logo on the shirt and those tattoos like the plague. I had even signed and photographed the painting. The painting sat overnight before I realized that the tattoos are part of this woman. Whether or not I successfully painted them, I had to try. If I wanted to capture who this woman really was, those tattoos were essential. It was very hard for me to pick up my brush again and tackle those tattoos. (and that t-shirt!) I was afraid that if I couldn't get the tattoos to look right, the whole painting would be ruined. That would also mean one less painting for the show. Oh, but deadlines can be a curse!

"Kate." Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches. ©Karine Swenson 2012

I have yet to hear what my lovely model thinks of this painting of herself, but I feel like I made some huge strides forward. Facing fear and overcoming it is so incredibly satisfying.

Two portraits

I have two new paintings to share with you today.  Both seem like portraits to me.  One is the portrait of a person, and one is a portrait of a Joshua Tree in bloom.  As you already know from my earlier post, I do think of the Joshua Tree as being figurative.

Here is the second finished painting of the Joshua Tree in bloom.  You can see that having an under painting really made a difference in the overall quality and liveliness of color.  This painting is oil on canvas, measuring 20 x 16 inches.   What really interested me in this painting was that clear blue spring sky. 

We received more rain over the weekend, and little bits of green are beginning to pop up all over the place.  There is quite a lot of mud, which Pono is irresistibly drawn to.  I suppose if I were a dog, I would want to walk through soft, squishy mud, too.  If I were a dog, I wouldn't have to mop the floor, after the adventure in mud.  The drawback I can see to being a dog is having to eat kibble every day.  So, I guess I will stay human. 

I also completed a portrait of my friend Shant last week. This painting was started with a four hour painting session at Shant's house.  I took photographs the day I started the painting, and used four of the photographs as reference to help me finish the painting once I got home.  Since it was a live sitting, I wanted to try to preserve the feeling of that.  It seems as though there is an unspoken communication between sitter and artist during a live session.  That is something that is lost when I only have a photograph to paint from.  I found it interesting that when I got home and printed out the photos I had taken, each photo was different.  Subtle shifts in the position of his body, along with variations of his expression were evident in the photographs.  The vitality of a live session is what I find compelling when painting a portrait.  The impossibility of both artist and sitter to hold completely still somehow becomes the thing that I want to capture, since it seems to be the part that is most elusive.  A likeness is important to me, but there is more there that I want to try to capture.  I am looking for the essence of who that person is.

I know it is probably surprising to some of you that an artist who is so infatuated with abstraction also enjoys painting more realistic and clearly representational art.  They may seem like two completely different things.  And yet, for me, I cannot seems to have one without the other.  When I am not drawing from life, my abstract work suffers, and vice versa.  The freedom of abstraction also helps me when I work realistically.  I will write more on this later.  Happy Monday, my dear blog readers!

Who I am

Here is the self portrait in oil I have been working on. I may work on it a little more, but it needs to sit for a while first. The idea was for it to be a portrait in words as well as image. It didn't turn out quite the way I envisioned, but I am feeling okay about it. It is the first portrait I have done in oil that I actually like (parts of it, not all of it.) It measures 40 x 30 inches, and it is oil and charcoal on linen. For a closer view of it, you can click on the image.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

More of the figure

I have been working exclusively on the figure for the past two weeks. I am on my second self portrait, and this one is in oil. I think it is beginning to resemble me, a bit. I am not sure I am ready to post it, but maybe by tomorrow I will feel a bit better about that. Instead, here is a charcoal drawing from yesterday. I struggled on this one!

Oh, and I guess you can see the final version of the pastel self portrait. It isn't too much different, but at least I have eyebrows now. Too tired to write more.