Vanilla Houses #4

I've spent the last few days working on this, the fourth painting in my series I'm calling Vanilla Houses. So called, because of their common blandness (among other reasons). Its acrylic on canvas, 24" by 30".

I'll have to let this one rest for a while and come back to it with fresh eyes.

Let me know what you think - what doesn't work, what does....

Thanks!

BOXED ME REDONE

After I loaded up the image of my self-portrait, "Boxed Self" I saw some things I didn't like. So, I've spent the last few days re-working it. I took out the black outline off the boxes, and changed a few other things, one of which was lightening up the shadow over the eye and doing away with so much yellow. Which is funny, because the very first addition, which I don't have a picture of, has the eye box mostly all yellow. I thought that worked very well. But, I kept fussing with it until the yellow left didn't look quite right. It needed to either add more yellow or totally eliminate the yellow...and of course, I went for the more realistic look.

I like it alot better, now. It's still acrylic on canvas 8"x10"

Here are the two, side by side:

BOXED SELF

Sifting through my photo files again, I came across a photo I took of myself. Using it as a starting point, I painted this today.
It's an acrylic painting on canvas 8"x 10".

INTO PORTRAITS

I saw a photo in the Seattle Times the other day, and thought it was a very interesting face. Turns out it's Geitner, the photo is by Applewhite of Associated Press.

I've been thinking about painting faces for a while now. So, when I saw the photo I had to cut it out. This might be a copyright infringement, so .....shhh.

I've got an inquiry into AP for permission (I didn't tell them it was after-the-fact).

I never did hear how the Obama 'HOPE' poster controversy turned out.

This is acrylic on canvas 12"x 9".

Since I don't want to get all tangled up in copyright infringments, I took a look through my own photo files. For years, I've been taking pictures of people and squirrelling them away with the idea I could use them for portraits.

When I look at family and friends pictures I have a hard time seeing just a face. I see memories and how they looked years ago and I find it very difficult to actually paint them. I've tried, and it just doesn't work! So, I need photos of people I'm not close to....

Here's Jenna. This is a photo I took in September of 2005.

This is an acrylic painting 8"x 10".

I like the Geitner painting better because it's a little more abstract. I started out wanting to make a very abstract painting. But, next thing I knew, it was this!

But, I think Jenna turned out really nice, too. I started it thinking I would get very defined with her 'edges and planes', but again, it turned out more realistic than I had intended. The under painting was very plane-like. I think that is what ultimately makes it a good painting.

Should I fight this tendency to go realistic? or go with the flow?

COMPASS MAT TOP COMPLETED

Well, after alot of head-scratching and moving around of parts and pieces, I finally figured it out, and got them all put together.

Now, I don't know what to do with it. I think it needs a border. At this point its about 24" by 18". There is plenty of fabric. Hmmmm. More head-scratching required, I think.

NORTH STAR COMPASS

Feeling the need to finish more quilt projects, I pulled out this small one. It originally was started by my sister, Sue. Somewhere along the line I inherited it. I'd always liked her fabric choices, and thought it would make a nice Christmas table mat. I was sorry to see Sue had abandoned it.
Anyway, it's been years since it was pulled out and of course, there were no instructions! It's a paper pieced pattern and all the pieces appeared to be there, so I stared sewing the fabric onto the paper pieces according to the colors Sue had marked on them.
When I got done doing that, I laid the pieces out and began trying to fit them together....
Oh, my...it's not going to be as easy as I thought.

To be continued.