I've just started on an African Lass (From Angola, where, a long time ago, we nearly got shot out of the air).
It's a bigger painting: 20 x 30 inches, because I'm still feeling my way and want to try out what it's like to paint at this size.
Colour mixing isn't coming naturally yet, although I get the basic tones fairly accurately the fine tuning of skin tones is more of a struggle. Practise, practice and more practise.
Christmas tomorrow, I'm hoping Father Christmas brings me some Black Sable Brushes!
Those are on my wish list too! Lovely. It seems to me that the subject and how you feel about it dictates the size and the approach, albeit style. I'm trying to like painting small, but my gesture/passion is grand. Thank G-d, income isn't an issue. .The pursuit is the joy.
ReplyDeleteYou always strike me as someone that doesn't do anything by half! I can imagine your passion foiled on small canvases. The joy in your work shines through
DeleteHi John! I have been out of blog-land for so long, and it is a delight to come back and find how far you have come with your paintings. I am not a bit surpirized, however! You are super talented:-) I am especially excited about your Angolian as it represents my continent and a neighboring country of my childhood...one with whom we were at war also, yet a family member has had occasion to visit it lately and loved the country and its people!
ReplyDeleteThanks Minnemie. We flew the British Foreign Secretary down there with the brand new US Ambassador to the UN (Andrew Young?) when Angola was still a Marxist State ... at one stage we had a Russian fighter on each wing tip.
DeleteLast time I was in Africa we flew the Queen (1979) on a two week tour, starting in Egypt and ending in Capetown