THE PROCESS
THE PROCESS: trial, error, and --- finally --- stop.
Copying a photograph --- enlarging and transferring flat lines, shapes, and colors --- is about as easy a thing anyone, not just a painter, can do, if you practice looking/seeing long enough. You could project, of course, or use a grid: simple. I do not work this way! Instead, I now paint from a photograph of a child I might have never met, from a photo NOT taken by me, from a photo often printed from social media. And it can be hard. But this new method is also very freeing. Half-way through the process, I quit looking at the photograph, referring to it on occasion for a measurement or a detail, but then it's back to the canvas, hoping at some point I'll know it's an "okay painting." Often it is not: aging eyes, arthritic fingers, and the lack of a defined strategy and intention have taken their toll. No one knows what I am doing, no one cares, so the results don't matter, and I am free. When I discover a hint of personality --- though, again, what do I really know? --- or when I feel that the source of a gesture or expression has been revealed, it feels worthwhile, a "gotcha!" moment. And maybe someday I'll meet these children I've gotten to know, at least superficially, through the eye of a camera.
For me, the most important thing is for it to be a good painting. (Or "good enough," as my mother would say.)
I have some favorites. The most recent one is described below.
FINDING PETER: 2025
A friend asked if she could commission a portrait. I said no, but I wanted and needed to do one, so I added it to the gifts. (See previous page.)
I'd painted her children back in the 1990s, visiting them privately and getting to know them and their "likes," then sketching and photographing them to complete each painting at home. At some point I'd made her portrait, as well.
Her husband had died a year ago, but he (and she) had stopped by Tucson for us to have a lovely visit, little known it would be our last one with Peter.
She sent me three photos of her "favorites," showing Peter grinning at various stages of their life together. Without anticipating it, my eventual work would be a combination of all three images, but the goal was to locate "him," the real guy. It was quite a process, especially since I'd only seen him every decade or so.
Knowing when to stop is always a tricky part of it. (And I meant to put on his glasses! But at some point, the man I knew appeared, and I forgot.)
2025: 30" x 24": acrylic on canvas.