Filed under: painting | Tags: acrylic, art, artist, Paint, painting, portrait, self portrait, still life, visual art
My painting teacher asked us to bring in an object to paint, or “present”, in his words. I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded intimidating. He brought over a Rauchenberg book to show me an example of what he meant when I asked him about it. Hmmm. No pressure. Setting the bar astronomically high…okay. Have I already mentioned that I love Rauchenberg’s work? I probably should have just crawled under my easel at that point, but I didn’t. Maybe if I had a stuffed goat and a tire, I might be able to sort of get within the same solar system as Rauchenberg’s work. Maybe not.
Anyway, I picked a small elephant toy that I’ve had since I was a kid. My childhood friend, Anita, gave it to me. Her dad was from India, and they went there on vacation. So, here is my little elephant…in pretty good shape if you consider how old it is…
Cute, right? He doesn’t stand up well, and tends to tip forward. I think that either his trunk puts him off balance, or his front legs are a little too short. I empathize.
So, here is my painting of this little guy:
I’m happy with it. I mean…it’s no Rauchenberg. I know. Trust me. This is what happens when you don’t crawl under your easel. I’ve always thought that still life painting was kind of…ummm…not so exciting. I gravitate towards abstract and messy art, so still lifes are so…well, still. Maybe I need to try it again? My teacher said nice things about it. Again, I know. He has to walk that delicate line of being somewhat frank, but not completely squelching me with reality. It’s only my third class, so I think that he’s still trying not to scare/offend anyone. He mentioned that three people left one of the other classes that he teaches, so perhaps he was worried about making the beginners in the class, like myself, run as well. Comments?
So, I’m still not done with this odd/icky self portrait. I know. Just paint over the whole thing and start again. My teacher suggested some abstract colored blobs to break it up a bit:
I don’t know. I’d like to help it somehow, but it might bother me too much to keep working on it. This is one of those painful confrontations with reality. I need to go out and buy a lot more titanium white to fix this thing. Maybe just getting a large tub of gesso and a paint gun would do the trick…I think that I get points for even posting it though, right? Maybe not. Sigh.
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slightly wonky 