Follow Me on Pinterest

Monday, March 10, 2008

Whistler's Mother


"And here we have Whistler's Mother." Remember "Bean: The Movie"? If you recall the part of the movie where Mr. Bean has a problem with the painting above, you'll have an idea of what happened with Susan's painting ... Argh.

Every time I do a painting, I ask Greg to look at it and tell me what he thinks. He has a good "art eye" and I trust him to be honest with me and tell me what he thinks. He's given me excellent suggestions on every one of my paintings so far.

One thing that bothered me about "Day on the Farm" was that the old bumpy painting was showing through on Susan's face, and that was the exact thing that Greg felt needed changing. He suggested that I either build up the rest of the face or to sand it down. I didn't want to do either. Acrylics don't seem to "build up" too well, and sanding would just cause a big mess. Plus matching skin tones would be a hassle. On the other hand, I figured that if Greg was thinking what I was already thinking, then everyone else would simply zero in on the disturbing looking feature on the eye and face. I knew I should fix it somehow. So I asked Greg if he could try sanding it down. This is what the painting looked like when he returned the sanded down version to me. Yikes!


Once the sun comes up this morning, I'll take a photo of the completed painting ... again.

3 comments:

arlene said...

Looks like Susan took a nasty spill off one of her horses...or wait! Maybe she decided to be a pirate in her 2nd career and you can just give her an eye patch!

I admire your tenacity. My tendency when something goes awry is to stick it in a closet and forget about it.

Anonymous said...

As they say "some days you're the bug, and some days your the windshield". It's frustrating, but the fun part is when everything works.

I'm visiting with my OWOH blogging pals and catching up. There really wasn't time during the bloggathon to see things. I like your way of looking at things.

Also, I enjoy painting over paintings too. I'm glad you arent' going over the Group of Seven!

Hugs and wishes for a great week.

Cookie

John Doan said...

I put up another song for John Doan if you want to put it on your playlist.

Have you thought to make a thick "or added thickner" gesso over old paintings with cross hatching strokes so it would make a nice texture over the old texture?

Deirdra Doan