Suzette the incongruous

So yesterday I still had an urge to do a neutral/monotone figurative piece (with a splash of red somewhere). I spent some time prepping a new cradled wood panel but in between sanding and texturing, I decided to work on another figurative piece. I was browsing through a photography source book, when I came across a photo of a woman with this wild spiky hair. My painting is not a copy of the photograph, it is a “remembered” vision of it. I looked at it for a while, did a light outline in crayon on the paper for composition, then did not look at the photograph until I had finished. I have no clue what to call this one (I was even toying with the idea of using “Untitled” for the first time in my painting career!), but on the TV this morning while I was getting ready for work, I heard the name “Suzette” which is such a beautiful name. I know this name doesn’t go with this figure, but somehow her hair and expression  don’t go with anything either, everything seems rather incongruous… Anyway, here she is, “Suzette the incongruous”:

Suzette the incongruous

12" x 12", acrylic on paper

Below is the photograph that I saw and painted from “memory”. See! Her hair really was that crazy!!

I think it’s time to get back to those abstracts!

Opposites, Attractions and the Circle of Inspiration

This weekend, I purchased two new pieces of art for my growing collection of small figurative paintings. I thought I might group them with another piece I bought last month. Of course I have to wait for the new pieces to arrive to really be able to tell if the three will look good together… My plan is to hang them on the very small section of wall just left of the tiny window in my guest bathroom, which is so small, only something the size of these exquisite small works will fit. My guest bathroom is turning into a little art galley! I put them together in Photoshop just to see how they might look and then simulated the wall color, which is a mid-tone muted green:

from top to bottom:

Daniel Moreira (Portugal) from “The Human Face” series, 6" x 6"

acrylic, watercolor and pencil on board mounted to balsa wood

“Graceful” by Micki Wilde (England), 8" x 8"

acrylic paint, caran d’ache, charcoal and pen on cradled wood

“The Natural Environment of Man”, 6" x 6" by Angela Petsis (PA)

mixd media on cradled wood panel

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because I was so inspired by browsing through all of the figurative pieces from some of my favorite artists while trying to decide what to spend my June art allowance on, that I had the uncontrollable urge to create a figurative work of my own yesterday, and so I did. I wanted to do a neutral face painting as I was very inspired by these and similar pieces I had been looking at. And of course, I got the last-minute urge to do something colorful and out of my comfort zone. So here is my latest painting, which is very small.

Colorful, 8" x 8"

acrylic on canvas board

The point of this long-winded post is that this painting would never have been created had I not seen the work of other artists and felt that inspiration. Not that mine is a great painting by any stretch, in fact it’s so far out of my usual color palette I’m not sure how I feel about this one. But it’s mere existence is a tribute to my appreciation of the work of other artists. The “circle” always kind of amazes me.