I don’t know about you, but I am really struggling to get anything finished these days.
So, in the spirit of keeping calm and carrying on, I thought I’d give you a few work-in progress-snaps. Y’know, in case you too are browsing the underbelly of internet rather than getting back to work. I would know… after all, I am writing this to actively avoid getting any painting done.
As you can see, my little family of portraits is steadily growing and I do promise to get on with it all.
Tomorrow, maybe.
In general, I do find working on multiple paintings pretty useful. Mainly, as it stops me from getting bored of my own work. Also, when using oil paints, this will give you something dry enough to paint on each day. That is the theory anyway. Right now I have a studio full of little paintings, like a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear.
The latest additions are my wee sister (left) and me (right), captured around 1996-1997 or so, and my husband’s dad (centre). I never got to meet John, which makes rendering a likeness quite difficult, but we are getting there. Painting a portrait from a photograph alone can be a bit tricky, but luckily I have my hubby to guide me through it. As silly as it sounds, sometimes you can paint the most perfect copy of a photograph, yet as a portrait it looks nothing like the person photographed. This wasn’t a problem when I was painting my dad, for example, as I know his features better than my own. I loved being able to spot any rogue brush strokes immediately, but here I am not quite so sure of myself.
We’ll just going to have to wait and see how this portrait develops.
The other thing I’ve been working on is the vibrant rainbow swirl pictured above. It started out as a colour test for another project, really, but could mature into a piece of its own. I am currently waiting for the paint to dry on this one so I could start adding new elements on top of the oil painted base-layer.
So stay tuned – how long can it take to find inspiration locked in a small cottage in the middle of a pandemic? Right!?
Oh, and allow me to toot my own horn a bit. If you fancy more of these work in progress type of posts, head over to my Instagram; you’ll get your fix there.
Cheerio.
Tx
tiina lilja 