8 December, Visiting artist talk, studio and assessment statement tutorial

Spent this afternoon working on this, after a visiting artist talk by Michael Safaric Branthwaite.

I'm not sure if the red and purple introduce a more striking palette and make it look a bit more graphic ? I really like the subdued tones of Michael Borremans, they're atmospheric - I'm considering what the introduction of colour does -  and my instinct tells me to glaze it with a darker colour so that there's only a slight red and the hat is mostly dark. (I think I prefer her to be nestled into the dark)  It'd be more in keeping with Rebecca Solnits writing about "hope" for the child to be overwhelmed by the outfit she's been dressed up in and what it might mean, with a nod to red and purple (when I am older I will wear purple poem) and how that could non conformity could develop, 

It feels refined as a composition but not as a painting so I think I will return to this.

 

Changed the shape of the face and lifted some paint from the eyes with low odour thinners - I was going to just do one but ended up doing both because it softened the colours - so I planned to redo them both.

 

Added purple and red, thinking about the poem "Warning when I am old I will wear purple"

Wasn't sure about the red and I have toned it down with some shading.

 

Added some colour back to the cheeks and added some depth to the hair to sit it into the hat.

When I got home my hubby said the hat was a bit wider on one side so may review it after the assessment but I'm going to step away from this painting for now and look at it with fresh eyes later.

Had a 121 with Rebecca Davies - she had a cancellation so I managed to catch up about my 750 word assessment statement which I'd missed last week due to illness. 

Talked through what I was working on; so what and what next.

I'm looking at roles but the writing by Rebecca Solnit and Simon Schama is making me see marginalised people in a new way - thinking about individual empowerment. 

Talked through the whole semester as the process from start to end is important. 

Rebecca mentioned that she reads the hat as a traffic cone -which my husband and some of my studio peers also saw. I don't think I mind this though. It is what it is and if there's an undercurrent of humour or ridiculousness - I don't see it as a problem - it's just another reading.

Talked about working from photos and how working from an archive could be a direction to go or using real models. Also discussed working in a series as this is something that I definitely do - Rebecca indicated that it was more common in print medium and approach and how it reads.