Retrospective – Fauve bottles and a husband in a hat

So what is that (apart from a really blurry photograph)?

That is what happens when I don’t have a good picture in my mind of what I am supposed to be doing. Why did I have no picture? Because I literally didn’t understand what I was supposed to be doing. Though having said that, I have to say that for a visual thinker like me, the picture must…MUST…come before the understanding. If I can’t see it in my synesthetic little brain, I can’t understand it (just ask my physics teacher – you ever tried to visualise some of those physics concepts? Nigh impossible, so hence I couldn’t understand it, hence I flunked the subject. Visual brain great for arts, not so good for some other applications).

So anyway, the assignment was more Fauve. Truly I didn’t get it the first time, and I didn’t really get it the second time either. Or did I?

This was a much more simplistic model to work with and had a purely teaching aim. Hey, bottles, I can draw them in my sleep (10 green bottles standing on the wall, 10 green b…earworm! Gotcha! Yes, it is going around in my head right now, too :D). But it was once again the colours we had to manipulate, and while we had an excellent example to work from, I couldn’t get the concept. So as you can see above, I got out the gesso and started again.

And this was my second attempt. I think something clicked, though I’m still not one hundred percent sure. The closest I could get to the requested concept was to pixelate the image and place each of the colours side by side, mixing, if necessary, on the palette, not the painting. It was the only logic I could find.

This is all lined up for re-gesso and re-use…so why am I showing you this?

Because the next project turned out like this…

I am really happy with my Hubby in a Hat. It was an exercise to further the Fauve study. So how did I succeed with this one, but fail with the two previous?

Firstly, my head space wasn’t the greatest for the first two. By the time I got to this one I was feeling better.

Secondly, landscapes are new to me, and while this is my first completed portrait in acrylic, I have been dabbling in portraiture for a long time.

Thirdly something clicked in the previous exercise, though I’m not sure what.

And finally, quite importantly, I discovered this guy…

…and he influenced me.

Shall we discuss Liz meets Vincent van Gogh tomorrow?

 

Best wishes,
Liz