Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Little Davy

                                        

This is one of my mother's little brothers back in what was probably 1955. It is 9x9 and an oil on linen mounted on board.

I plan on doing more of Davy, who is now David, because he was such a strange looking little boy that I just have to paint him for my series of old family movies.

I think it was the glasses that made him look so strange when he was young. He was probably about four here and had these coke bottle glasses that were always crooked or taped up where they had broken. Anyway, he is a treasure trove of work waiting to happen! By the way he did grow up to be a good looking man!

As with most of my other paintings my palette was limited. This time I used yellow ochre, burnt umber, burnt sienna cobalt blue and a touch of cad red medium plus black and white.

The painting always seems to go much faster when you are working on a hard surface even though you are still painting on linen. I also tend to get a little more detail oriented when working on the board.

This series is a bit of a change for me. It is forcing me to put other things in my paintings beside the figure or an animal which I really don't like to do. I love other artist's work that can incorporate all kinds of things in a painting but it always feels unnatural for me to do it. My eye is always seeing less is more in my paintings or maybe I could be just plain lazy!