I Did A Thing, vol. 29

This post will be a bit of a mixed bag, which is a good reflection of my year to date. At the end of December, I experienced some general life burn-out which extended over to my painting; rather than push through it, I gave myself permission to take “time off”. I started reading more again – I’m up to 11 books read in 2020 so far – and even did a bunch of knitting. While I enjoyed the break, I did feel like something was missing. When I am not creating something – and I don’t count knitting here because it’s more of a mechanical activity than a creative one for me – I miss it. But in going back into creative mode, I decided to be more selective about it – choosing projects that spoke to me, without worrying about whether they would appeal to a wider audience.

It started with this portrait I completed late last year, taken from a photo that I fell in love with. The model, Angele Fougeirol, reminded me a little bit of my mom when she was young.

I can’t say that I used any new techniques (other than experimenting with a more abstract finish/background) but I really took my time with it and consciously applied all of the skills that I’ve been learning over the past 6 months. It was a true labour of love; I made the portrait for myself and it turned out to be one of my best pieces. It’s hanging up on one of the gallery walls in my house next to some of my other favourite art.

Then I have an idea to do a portrait series inspired by the zodiac. I’m not super into astrology, but I was drawn to the idea of trying to visualize each sign as a person. There was a bit of research involved, but mostly intuition. It started with this inspiration photo, which reminded me of a renaissance painting:

Something of her air (or maybe it was her hair) made me think of Aries. That’s how it all started.

Trying to find other inspiration photos that suit my overall vision for this project has been a slow and sometimes difficult process. Again, rather than rushing through for the sake of moving along, I took my time with it. Eventually, I found a second photo that was perfect.

This is Virgo, and she is such a beauty:

I am currently looking for my next zodiac subject, but I haven’t found her/him yet. I trust that the right one will come along in due course.

In the meantime, I decided to tackle a couple of other “passion” projects. First, I found an old beading project that I had begun and abandoned several years ago, and felt inspired to finish it. Working on it was a nice alternative to painting on days when I could only spare a little bit of time in the evening, after sundown. Lately, I’ve had better luck painting in daylight, so I tend to do most of it on weekends. Beading (along with reading) has filled my free time during weeknights. Here is the finished piece:

I upcycled a simple stretchy belt that I thrifted for $3.50 to serve as the “backing” for the beaded piece. Worked like a charm.

Second, I decided to indulge in a little bit of fandom by painting a portrait of Geralt of Rivia – aka the Witcher. Yep, still obsessed with that. I chose this promotional image from Netflix over a (more natural) still image from the show because I wanted to try a more stylized approach.

Honestly, it was … a challenge. Working largely in greyscale rather than skin tones was a new experience from me, as was working with a male subject (it’s only my second one). Then, of course, there is the likeness. Making Henry Cavill look ugly is some kind of crime against nature and art. Not to mention, there are lots of examples of amazing Witcher fan art all over Reddit and social media, just in case I needed some more pressure. This was one of those times when I really didn’t know if I could pull it off.

Witness the beginnings:

Not exactly promising, right? I mean, it was the opposite of promising. There was a point (bottom right) when I seriously thought this was a lost cause project. It looked soooo bad. But I stuck with it, plugging away slowly. A couple of weeks in (working very haphazardly, I might add), I finally turned the corner – to the point when it looked somewhat human.

And then I kept going, tweaking a little, bit by bit. That’s been one of my biggest lessons learned from painting: no matter how unpromising the beginning, if you keep working at it, it will get better. Not immediately, but over time. And to give myself the grace to be not-so-good but open to improvement.

And, in the end, I was quite pleased with the result:

In somewhat related news, I started a new separate IG account for all my art/craft projects. My handle is “the_arterego” in case you’re interested in following along.