Oil Portrait Painting

I've been working on a portrait of the parents of the children I posted last time:

Once again the colors didn't translate too well. 

An interesting article recently in the Atlanta paper, taken from the NY Times, on using fake heads and/or bodies in print ads.  A scientific term "uncanny valley" theory applies to this with regard to using unreal faces:  "People will tolerate only so much artificial human likeness before attraction turns into revulsion.  If they added a super realistic but not-real face, they'd become uncanny, and therefore frightening, eerie and creepy."   I wonder if this applies to how people view art.  Are hyper-realistic faces viewed as eerie?  What about other alterations and abstractions?

Watercolor Portraits of Children

I've been working on some children's portraits, and feel very fortunate to have a chance to paint these delightful children!  I think watercolor is the perfect medium for children's portraits, but I'm also working on an oil version for this family, on one canvas.  The colors are not quite accurate in this photo of the three paintings:

Cold Night Flowers

It's a good night to keep warm painting flowers.  I added a camelia blossom to the leftover Thanksgiving arrangement.

Foo Dog, and other Small Things

Some small paintings I've been working on:
the Foo Dog, or Shishi Lion, is thought to offer protection and security

And a Ginny Doll:

and 2 food paintings, always a favorite for me:

Over Painting and RePainting

Here's a sketch I did at a recent life drawing group:

I've been doing a lot of Repainting lately, while realizing this can often be unwise.  It's tempting to take a painting that is partially successful and see if it can be improved upon.  Many artists find this quite useful and the built up layers can add interesting depth and texture.  Recently I came across a website devoted to Mabel Alvarez who did this later on in her artistic career using her newer vision of art:

 She was admonished for this practice in a 1960 letter to her from Earl Rowland of the Pioneer Museum & Haggin Galleries in Stockton, California. “Now I have a few things to say that might be interesting to you. You greatly shocked me when you said you are painting over some of your old canvases and doing things in your new style on top of them. This worries me. Such a practice could only arise from two causes. One, that you fail to appreciate your older work sufficiently and two, that the purchase of materials is a problem with you which I think is not likely to be the case.” Alvarez Papers AAA.

October

October, my favorite month is just about over.   I  had a wonderful trip to Laguna Beach.  It is always restorative to walk on the beach, and a bonus to have so many lovely galleries to explore.

Here is a figurative painting, just working on.  Not sure if this is finished, so input always welcome.

I've been spending time painting still lifes lately.  Here are two of the recent ones (all oil)

Sketch Group

Thursday was my last day leading the Sketch Group!   Look forward to painting at more groups in Atlanta and having some more time to paint.  We had a wonderful model/singer who is returning to LA soon.  Here's my painting

And another painting, perhaps finished?