As I look back at many days worth of work on this painting I have a fear of too much rendering.
The model in these photos has really smooth skin and I’m trying to make the painting look like the model, so inevitably their is lot of smoothing of strokes. The last thing I want is for the model to look like a porcelain doll, rigid and dead. I guess it is a balancing act. I’ll try and inject as much interest into the paint quality as I currently know how while trying to keep it accurate.
Artists all over the world looking at Sargent, Sorolla, Rembrandt and a whole host of other masters for inspiration. But, it seems to me that the first thing that is copied is the style. Of course their styles are absolutely amazing, but trying to copy their style without taking into account the time it took them to get there is naive by any artist. How could I ever expect to have a painting anywhere near the beauty of Rembrandt’s paintings in his later years without doing the same work he did to get there. I would be happy to follow the same route as Rembrandt and start out super detailed and highly rendered. Then eventually over years and years mastering the medium further and gaining the ability to describe as much with less.
Logical steps over time, I’ll get there eventually because I’m showing up daily and doing the work.
