Leaving the Blue Behind

In this strange time, it's a comfort to shut everything out and work on solving the thousands of problems involved in making a painting.

    For the last few sessions, I've been heading toward lightening the skin tones while letting the shadows remain. So yesterday, I purposely left the blues off my palette, and I let a little bit of white sneak in. 

   I'm still not happy with the guy's face. He looks a little shifty to me(!). Not at all like the model, but the only picture I have of him is just his hands. Also, in an effort to start building up layers in the little girl's skin but also keep her delicate looking, I lost most of her darks. So, that will be the next job.

    The good news is, sometimes I think I see them move out of the corner of my eye. It means I'm on the right track :)

      I'm lucky I can lose myself with this little fam.

Teaching in the Time of Covid-19

   One would think that during isolation, there would be a lot of time to be alone with your thoughts. But, nope. For over a week, I've been racing to get three classes up and running online, plus keep the fourth one on track. Several of my students are struggling because they have difficulty accessing wifi from their homes, or because they have no idea how to participate in an online course. But mostly, they have been champs. So many of them have written to say they understand the complexity of the job right now. And they are making work that I am sorry I am missing seeing for real.
    So, besides grading my brains out, I've been busy redesigning the rest of the semester so that it is manageable for all of us. I'm about half-way there. I'm trying to go for the least complicated options. Which means I'm still probably over-doing it, because complicated is my middle name.
    Once this is under control, I'm hoping I can be alone with my thoughts again. Because that's when the painting happens. We'll get there.

The Covid-19 Cancellation Monster

    Well, Covid-19 changed a few things around here, starting with the focus of the Tubman project. There were supposed to be two performances of the choral work this weekend, both of which were cancelled. The music is very beautiful and complex. I don't remember if I posted a link to a recording of it, so here it is: http://www.pavanepublishing.com/sounds/P8011.mp3

  Those dates were also going to feature ten of the silhouette images that my classes created with Harriet Tubman's life and journey as the subject. We were all ready to go! It's not a real loss, because we all learned a lot in the process, and the work will be shown next fall, both in town and in our university gallery. Still, it's a little disappointing.

 The silver lining is that I feel really lucky to have been a part of this group and to get to learn and sing this with an amazing conductor. Maybe when this all blows over, we can perform it. Here are two more images from the set:

Where I left it today

I just realized this image didn't post correctly the first time. I hope this posting works!

     

    The best thing about spring break is I can afford an hour or two a day for this. And marimba :)

Right now, I'm working on resolving the shadows. I spent some time with my trusty blue pastel pencil and looked for the deepest values. And then I started brightening and evening the skin tones. I feel like I may have lost a little ground on her belly, because I squandered some of the darks I could have left behind in favor of poufing her out. I see some other things, too. I'll fix them tomorrow.

    

  

First stencil effort

And...it ain't perfect. What else is new? I didn't marry the stencil down properly, so I've got a couple of smeary areas, and I think I need to mess with the Silhouette settings a bit more to smooth out the lines. But, we'll get there. I managed to find some stencil material with adhesive backing, and I made this one with black spray paint. So far, so good.

    It took so long to get everything working this far, that I finally had to admit today that it would be better if I had these printed professionally for the upcoming concerts next weekend. Otherwise, it would be a stressful mad dash from now until then. I'll still have to brave using Spray Mount to attach the prints to boards, but at least they will be clean and I will have minimal cutting to do.

   Maybe I'll actually get some time to paint this week!

Here is another one of my favorites, which references Billie Holiday's song Strange Fruit:

I'm so proud of these guys.