Two more iterations from the photo of our daughter-in-law and granddaughter (at www.lynnholbein.com ). Here’s a version with graphite (pencil & graphite stick), and also a painting with an undercoat of gesso applied in different directions to add texture to the hair and clothes.
This painting for my “Paintings in Series” class might well be subtitled “From Mess to Success.” The assignment was to create texture in your painting. I put salt in the mother’s hair to give it texture, and then glued tissue paper on her shirt, which looked awful. In frustration, I ran the whole painting under the kitchen faucet and scrubbed at it. When it emerged, it started to look better, so I applied ink to the edges (it was damp, so it ran on the baby’s face) and reinforced the paint on the mother’s and baby’s hair. A happy accident.
In April I’m sharing some pieces made for a class “Painting in Series,” when we each chose a photo and painted it using a variety of techniques. See my website www.lynnholbein.com for the reference photo of Eva and our granddaughter Maggie.
This assignment was to cut loose from realistic colors. The top uses contiguous colors (a variety of blues), and the bottom uses opposite colors (red/orange and blue/green). Crazy, but it helped us think outside the box.
I recently completed an excellent 10-week class called “Painting in Series,” taught by Chetana Keltcher, about painting the same image over and over using different techniques. For my weekly posts in April, each Monday at 5 I will send you one or two paintings I made for this class.
This photo is of our daughter-in-law Eva, holding our granddaughter Maggie when she was six months old; Maggie will be three this week. The painting below is on rice paper, using ink applied with both a pen and a brush.
