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April 06, 2005
After the primer
Then the drawings start to be compared: which drawing – which pose – do I want to paint? Which works best?
The painting is a huge commitment in time and money; a handicap in many ways, as it limits my choice. I don’t have the time or money to paint all the pictures I want to paint. So I have to select certain poses, certain pictures, certain compositions. And I want to paint them all – and more besides.
“Well, paint smaller!”
“I’ve tried.”
“It won’t take so much paint.”
“I can’t do it smaller.”
“And it’ll be quicker.”
But, I can’t paint smaller, I’ve tried, but the scale-ruler in my brain has been mislaid. It’s life size or larger [larger’s great but that’s well big, very expensive, time consuming and wholly impractical.]
So I have to choose, like trying to choose a tattoo: which picture gets to be painted? Sometimes I get it wrong. And then, no matter how good the painting – the application of the paint, the brush strokes, the colours, the tones, the textures – if the composition and pose don’t work, the whole thing doesn’t work.
maybe I'll choose this one, maybe I won't [I suspect I won't]
ps: even the drawings are nearly lifesize - that's a whole lot of charcoal [and very dirty fingers]
Posted by john at April 6, 2005 02:18 PM
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