Inspiration

Two visual ideas collided this week in the painting below.

New Hat   16" x16"

A few years ago I took a wonderful photograph of our daughter posing for me, wearing a new hat, and I always thought that the picture had some potential as a painting. Recently I came across a figurative painting by Terence Clarke - an English painter whose work I love and it (the painting below) provided the inspiration for mine.

The Straw Hat by Terence Clarke

In comparing the two, I definitely 'nailed' the pink background - sans interesting yellow-orange circles and paint dabs - which of course make that pink ground so interesting! There are also remnants of blackish outlines around Clarke's figure (shoulder area and hat) which I have not incorporated into my figure painting, and makes it less 'defined' on the pink, I think. Unfortunately the photo I used does not show any strong shadows on the face, so I couldn't really play with those beautiful turquoise shadows he uses, as much as I would have liked. I also changed the colouring in the hat - a pseudo leopard skin angora knit in greys - and then played with colour elsewhere in the clothing. I did not intend to paint a portrait of C, but I did try to draw her face accurately. My husband thinks it is close - but I need to go back and adjust the cheek line and chin (lose the point) to make it a little more like her. Perhaps while I am doing that I will just revisit the background, outlines, clothing, hair and face colouring too! Lots of work here.
Thanks for 'listening' - I just needed to express these thoughts to motivate myself to take some risks ( I might wreck what I have already done), but what the heck. Stay tuned to see what happens.