A warm grey wash of pigment and turpentine unlocks the white canvas, allowing the image locked in my head to escape. Touches of colors fade into the still fresh wash as I mark where shoulders will be. Another smudge of burnt sienna for her face & hair, hips, feet, and hands. So far, so good. Confident now, I open a conversation with my model.
The conversation builds a connection with her and I that is very important for mixing colors. The more enlightening the conversation, the richer the colors are. Which red in my box will do her justice, as I listen and trade ideas? I tend to look closer as I get to know who is posing for me.
Things like folds in a skirt cause problems for me because they seldom return to their same position after breaks. Sometimes they are better after a break and I spend time changing them. Doing nudes, I don’t have the folds to deal with. With nudes I have to think more about my brushwork. Too much brushwork for me takes away from the softness of a young lady, and I tend to prefer young ladies for my paintings. At the same time, too smooth a rendering of the nude is just not for me.
I like broken colors in my art. I can appreciate other artists' work for how they treat the nude. Some with rough, wild strokes showing passion, and others with tight renderings; all speak to me. Lately I have been pulling little color studies out and loosening them up with looser brush work. These little studies bring back conversations. One brought back the story of one model's journey of getting to America and learning English from classmates in her high school. Another color study reminded me how brave my models can be. One donated a kidney to her mother.
Painting is a process of looking and learning. Sometimes it is looking inside myself and finding a new person. "Why a nude?” is a question I ask myself and the answer is always in the painting itself. A painting of a girl stepping out of a shower, or standing on a scale checking her weight, are simple daily reasons for being nude. Watching her figure form out of the running wash on the canvas, hearing about the model’s adventures, like stealing her way to America, are all there in my art, and me, through the painting process.
