The Blahs Continue

This is probably going to be my last post for a few days. I am getting married next Saturday and will probably not have much time to paint since I will be inundated with family and wedding preparations/ festivities. It's probably a good time to take a break anyways since I seem to lack inspiration and motivation at the moment. I usually can't last more than a week without painting so I'm sure that by the time I am married, I will be itching to get back into the studio and start a new painting.

Despite the blahs, I did manage to do a tiny bit of painting yesterday. It wasn't much but I did work a bit on my grandfather's portrait. It has been a struggle with this one since the photograph has very little contrast. Because of this, the painting has looked flat and cartoony. I pumped up the values and it looks much better. It still doesn't look perfect to me but I got my dad's seal of approval, and it's his dad that I am painting. Of course, this is the week before my wedding so I am sure he is super sentimental at the moment and liking everything I do. But at least he didn't say "who's that?" right? I wanted this painting to be at the wedding as a memorial to my grandfather who died a few years ago. He would have loved to be at my wedding and meet Ben. We are also memorializing Ben's dad who died a year ago. I was at least fortunate enough to meet him a few times and he will definitely be missed next Saturday.

"Portrait of My Grandfather as a Young Man"

I also worked for a split second on the bicycle painting. I'm kind of liking this one and think that the concept works better on this painting than the others since the outline of the figure is more dynamic.