Resurrecting Mrs. Swift

   Every year, there is a show in Chicago about motherhood that I'd like to enter, but some of the pieces I have with that theme aren't in a presentable shape, or I don't have possession of them. The Scaffold painting I've been working on is one of them, and this is another. I just ordered a big mat board from Dick Blick, so that I can adhere these small panels onto a larger substrate. Then, my plan is to adjust the values so that it has higher contrast. The two panels that are missing have an error in size (I could explain why, but chalk it up to grad school and having to make-do on a schedule) and have to be re-drawn. Part of today's work involved cutting the new paper for those drawings. 

    This image started out as a very small drawing and then bloomed into an image for one of the paper quilts I made for my thesis show, titled, Mrs. Swift Learns to Speak Boy. The problem with the quilt and it's sister, Dreamer in Training, is that they are too fragile to enter in any competition where they would have to endure any amount of handling. I recently found the drawings that I used to make the prints for the quilts, and thought I should try to get them into a more presentable form. I hope I can do it.

Overture

   I never thought I'd write these words, but lately, I've been reading Proust for fun. I've known about the petit madeleines scene for a while, but when I read it this time, I was struck by how excited the narrator was about everything that had sprung from his teacup. I made this little sketch, just to remind myself of the impression the passage made on my eyes.

 

Checkpoint

One of the things I do to check my form and composition is to view the piece upside down. Mistakes seem to jump out that way. As far as I can tell, so far so good on this one.

 

New Look

 Well, I took the plunge and adopted a new template. The only thing I don't like is the position of the blog title over the background image. I haven't been able to figure that out just yet. But mostly, I think it looks okay.

A long time to get there

  When my son was little, the days were long and nighttime was a challenge. When everything was done and we were finally snuggled in our rocking chair, we would say, "Phew! It took a long time to get here!". I miss those days.

    That's the way painting goes for me, too. A professor once told me that my work looked terrible, until it didn't, all of a sudden. I suppose she would say that about this one.  It'll get there, though. One stroke leads to the next. I don't know any other way to do it.

   Just like putting a baby to bed, this kind of painting takes time, if you do it right. 
 

Can you tell which ones I like the best?

 

Baby steps

   I got started on the baby today and changed the direction of the mom's thumb. I was laughing at myself, because one of my favorite things to do is to adjust form with line, working with positive and negative space. I teach my students that concept, but after they get it, I try to steer them away from being too dependent on line and use value to define forms instead. That goes right out the window where my own work is concerned.

    I still haven't solved my background color issue. I think Blogger would really like it if I abandoned this old design and adopt one of their templates. I'll probably wind up doing that, but I have a feeling some things won't be easy to customize.