Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I've been trying to get back into painting. Last semester I pretty much I forgot how to paint for a few months, and it was pretty much a huge crisis, and suddenly color was just utterly baffling to me. But by the end of the semester I had just about figured things out again.


3 hour class study

But then it was winter break and then I moved to London and then I haven't really painted much since December. So I'm trying to get back into it, and so for an exercise I took some doodles I've done on the tube...

this nice lady

this weird guy


and tried to paint them, attempting to create form while preserving the quality of the drawing.





I don't really know how I feel about them. I feel like I've lost some of the freshness that I struggled to find last semester. This might be because I am using acrylic and not oil. Or I am just reverting to old habits. I have to keep reminding myself to keep my head in the game and better shapes with each stroke instead of needling. Not sure if I want to pursue this style of working. I love the look of painted illustration with stylized form, but I find it really difficult.



In other news, the battle in our kitchen is reaching new heights of passive aggression.

2 comments:

Cait Peterson said...

I think these paintings are really great, nothing like anybody else is doing in our course. I'm really jealous because I can't paint at all. I especially like the painting of the weird guy, you can just tell his whole attitude. It's very reminiscent of the Stinky Cheese Man and that kind of illustration you were talking about. It's really distinctive and rich, but not something that seems to be big influence for us students, stuck in our pen-line-drawing ways.

AS said...

I've finally found your blog, Nikki. I love your work. Your paintings are awesome - really unique and energetic and I love the colour pallette.

I dunno what Cait said about pen-drawing, but your stuff is the stuff that moves me, the work I want to see more of. Wicked.