Love My Ladies

As of this past weekend, my house is a little over 2 months old. The decorating is coming along great. Probably not as fast as I would like, but I'm okay with that. I was told that putting your house together is a marathon not a sprint. I have actually been told some variation of this statement by several of my friends and coworkers. They clearly know me all too well. I am a definite busy body, and have this constant feeling of getting the house finished. However, I am officially back to one project at a time. Though I do have to stop myself from time to time when I start thinking 5 projects ahead. Last week I finally started to hang some of my paintings up. In particular my ladies. I'm excited because they are some of my favorites.

It all started one day I was having one of my many random conversations with my good friend Herb. Now a little background on Herb, he is just plain special. There is no other way to describe it. It amazes me the things that he says and does sometimes. All you can do is shake your head, smile, and go with it. He's one of a kind in the best of ways. He also happens to be one of those friends that pushes me creatively. We will just be discussing some random topic and somehow a great idea will come about. On this particular day we were talking about Outkast, and that trickled down to the Outkast cd art. If you don't know, Outkast puts women in some sort of artistic aspect on their cds. We thought it would be cool to recreate it but bigger. So, with that my first lady painting was born.

I didn't know where to find round canvas, so I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up a large piece of matboard. The whole painting took me a few months. Like I said in my last post, I was never much of a painter growing up. My expertise is abstract, so recreating something more real life always wrinkles my brain. I was actually quite surprised with how good it came out. I impressed myself! I did the painting for Herb and have not seen it since. It somehow seems to be in some secret location heavily guarded in his home. 

From that day forth I was inspired. Something about painting using the shapes and curves of a woman's body always makes for a good art piece. I definitely love men in real life, but in art no so much. After that I was inspired to do more. Most of my favorite paintings have been of women, and I finally found homes for all of them.

Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice is one of my favorite paintings. It's funny because I originally had no intention of keeping them. I only did it to create the idea that was in my head. I was actually getting ready to sell them. However, the guy who wanted to buy them seemed to have an awful lot of feedback on how I could have made them better. That was the best thing he could have done that day. I realized it wasn't the painting he loved, he loved collecting stuff. I wanted someone to love my artwork. So, I decided to keep it and after awhile fell in love with it myself.  Lots of people actually like this set of paintings. My aunt seems to have already claimed them if anything were to ever happen to me.

This was inspired by a picture someone posted on fb. It was a small postcard of a woman's back and a big curly afro. I thought it was cute, and mentally stored it for future project inspiration. One day I felt like painting something so I decided to give it a go. I imagined a woman with a big afro made of circles. The circles in my head were suppose to look more blended, but the colors weren't giving the effect I wanted. I decided to just make them more separate. This painting took almost 6 months to do. I painted the woman, her hair, and then got stuck. I wasn't sure what to do with the background, or her body. She was originally suppose to be bare all the way down, but once I painted it I wasn't really feeling it. It looked flat and lifeless. I got to a point where I didn't know where to go. So, I put it away. It stayed away for months. Then one day I wanted to finish it so I took it back out. With fresh eyes, the rest of it seemed to come together. You'd be surprised how often stepping away from something and coming back is all you need. I LOVE HER! I have had several people ask me for this one. I've decided I want to keep her though. I feel like I'm allowed to keep some of my art. :)

This painting is one of my most recent creations. After completing the last one, a fellow artist had asked me about recreating the painting in black and white. It's always difficult to recreate a painting. It never has the same "WOW" factor as it did the first time. However, now my interest had been peaked about an all black and white version. Black and white paintings pose their issues. When you only have 2 colors to use you have to get creative to create contrast and separation without the colors running in to each other. I remembered another painting I had done in black and white using different patterns, so I used that same idea. I drew the outline of the woman, and then started to fill her in. This was slightly difficult because unlike the other black and white painting, I needed the woman to stand out while still using the same 2 colors for the background. I have to say she came out so much better than I imagined. She's hanging upstairs near my bedroom. I am selling her so at some point I won't have her anymore, but stay tuned I have some ideas for a variation. 

I wonder what the next lady will be? Who knows, so for now....it's on to the next project!