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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Bro1

Finished this yesterday, my elder brother Adam sitting out at a picnic last summer (must have been one of the better days).  Soft pastels and pastel pencil on 24 X 30 beige pastelmat.

I'm entirely satisfied with this which concerns me a bit, not sure that complacency about ones work is very useful.

4 comments:

  1. I like this portrait a lot. His expression is great and the application of the paint is very cool.

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  2. The definition of complacency has two tones to its meaning. On one hand it is a feeling of great satisfaction in one's work of which I think there is nothing wrong, on the other it is a smugness which implies I know it all, there's nothing more for me to know. My sense is that you will continue to push yourself beyond to exploring more. Allow yourself some joy in your work.

    I find it interesting when an artist paints the exact same subject several times, altering something, sometimes just the framing sometimes paint treatment. It's not an indication that there was no satisfaction in the first one.

    It's also is comforting to know that one can repeat success from one painting to another, to repeat the choices made in the first.

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  3. Benco I forgot to say how much I like the painting. Thank you for sharing the stages of the piece. I also love the one of your Father especially how he is enveloped by the negative space which feels very fluid.

    I am so glad I found your blog. I like coming here because you share your inner thoughts about your process. It causes me to think about my own and encourages me to tackle my fears.

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  4. Thanks for the kind comments Peggi, Bebedoros & Artscapes. I am pretty optimistic about the dads portrait and glad that the 'on the easel' page is getting looked at, I find it surprisingly useful myself to have an easily accessed, chronological record of my recent pictures, just wish our iniquitous internet service down here would allow me to leave more WIPs on there.

    Re: tackling fears, watch this space. Up till now I've been painting pretty random subjects that haven't really shown what I hope my art can be. I have in mind 2 projects that should really test what I can do, one is a set of abstracts that portray how I see the process of painting (for me personally) and the other are paintings of the distinct memories I have from the Falklands War, not realistic depictions of the events then but just my memories as a seven year old during the occupation. Both of these will be really tough, don't really know if I'll have the guts to tackle them.

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