Backlit

Curious about this title? I came up with ~a dozen titles for this painting as I painted over the past few days. It could be due to the fact that this is my 3rd version of this composition. The other 2 were a tad less successful. It took some preplanning to decide on the colors, composition and design before I felt comfortable with this.

This beautiful woman was walking down a rural road in Bali last year. I stopped in my tracks when I saw her/this scene from afar, whipped out my camera and wished I could stop time. I only had time to smile at her, then hope she didn't mind as I snapped away. She was obviously working, had a huge load of tropical leaves on her head. The summer sun was behind her, making it appear that this vision was from another place or time. The look on her face as she realized what I was doing will always make me grateful. She beamed. I don't know if what I saw was kindness, compassion, warmth, a friendly smile or tolerance. It doesn't matter. It was a warm, beautiful smile in a bucolic scene. That gesture and her grace warmed my heart.

A Day of Portraits and Models

Day 4. Exhausting. Learned alot. Got frustrated, then poured those feelings out on my watercolor paper and life felt OK again. Drawing figures and portraits with any sense of accuracy is almost impossible unless done daily. Never mind. This act is probably frustrating period. It is also satisfying when an artist does capture a feeling or likeness of the model.

Attached is a portrait that I gave up on, started dropping in all sorts of mudd (professional term in my watercolor world.....), then started painting in vivid colors here and there. Mary (instructor) came by and took my sponge (!) and wiped out areas of highlights. Quite nice result, actually. A few more brush strokes here and there and this is the result.

The top photo is of Mary Whyte, her painting demo and the model that she was painting. An inspiring day.

"Does anybody really know what time it is?"

Spent the AM painting at the Marina. The weather here has been surreal. I have found that September is the perfect month to visit San Francisco. There were 3 boats harbored here that captured me from the start. This photo was taken about 1/2 way through my painting. My painting stopped abruptly as 3 men started lounging on the grass around my easel. They were friendly enough, actually quite chatty, but I became unnerved as one started speaking about stealing the watches from another painter and myself. Well, time to move on to our next venue.....the afternoon found us back in the classroom painting models. I left my watch in my room.