Works in Progress

Lately I haven't had much luck on focusing on one particular thing. My mind is scattered, thinking of 60 million things at once, not all necessarily art-related. It's been hard to focus on just one painting since I start to get frustrated easily on a piece and instead of working through the frustration, I just switch paintings.

Currently I am working on three at once, all are at different stages of doneness. Some I have posted here before, and one is brand new. I've decided to start posting my work in progress here. I usually tweet about it but I wonder if anyone on there even cares. Plus, the limiting letter count doesn't give me much space to contemplate what I am working on. I think I need to start contemplating more. I need more reflection. This is where I chose to do it.

This is the newest painting that I started today. I am really liking it so far. I like the high contrast on her dress and the dark shadows. Her left hand looks like it is deformed. I have yet to master hands, as one can tell from my previous paintings and this one. I will probably finish this painting first before the other two since I am enjoying what I am painting and how it is turning out. The other two paintings are looking too cartoony for me which makes me not like painting them.

This one is looking better although I am still not happy. I still have a lot of details to add on the guitars and as you can see, the hands are not done. Since I'm not very good at hands, I tend to leave them out until the very end. The original photograph had a very dark background so it was hard to see where the guitars ended. I had to make up some of the guitar and it's neck. I'm still not happy with the faces but it doesn't look as bad as it used to, thanks to the advice of my studio mate, Rebekah.

I worked a little bit on this one. I figure if I do a small bit every day, then I may actually get this done. I added a hood to the chair on the left and I think it looks better. I still think this painting has too much white space and it doesn't work as well compositionally as the others. I have been using less white space lately and this one doesn't follow my new pieces. I like the ladies enough to try and finish it though.

I am hoping to have at least one of these done tomorrow. I won't have much time to paint in the next week or so since I will have family in town.