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Saturday 30 January 2010

This might not be here that long.........!

I haven’t had the best two weeks back at work after my long break. I’m still here but the events of the past two weeks support my experience that artists are much nicer people to hang out with than business people. The difference between the two groups is quantum. Because I was feeling so angry with the business world, I was delighted to wake up this morning to very bright sunshine; perfect conditions for artists and photographers. My nocturnal sketching during the weeknights hadn’t taken off somehow because the light wasn’t good enough, not even for spontaneous charcoal work. However, the light, no matter how good this morning, just wasn’t all that was needed to take a very good photograph of a very crazy painting. I need a new camera; more pixels and the correct lens.

Maybe a painting of lamp chops standing on their ‘shoulders’ on a bread board is not crazy to some painters, but I had never painted anything like this before. My experience with close-ups, still lifes and even outdoor scenes is limited. If I dare say it, my 'strength' as a painter has always been with conceptual work, huge non-representational works. Now, it is my objective to ‘get good’ at these more 'classical' genres just for the experience. For this still life I worked from a photograph, obviously, and didn’t manipulate the lighting or composition to make the scene more interesting or enigmatic. Just a straight shot – the bare bones so to speak – and a straight painting was what I was looking for. However, it took a lot of ‘seeing’ to get the chops to remotely represent the real thing, and I think I should have made them smaller with more space around them.

Another obstacle I faced was painting in oil on an acrylic primer. Mistake. I noticed the lack of sympatico between the primer and the oil with the first few brushstrokes and I thought that after the first layer of oil was down, the primer would have no influence. Wrong. I don't understand the science of this but for the record I now understand that acrylic primer is for painting with acrylics and oil based gesso is for painting with oils.

I don't know why I am posting this work because I am totally uncrazy about it - but I was determined to discipline myself to finish it. I might delete this post after a while but I do like getting work up on this blog for some reason or another. I'm now off to finish a pesky outdoor scene with lots of challenging foliage. After lunch of course.

"Lamb Chops"
Oil on Board - 12" x 12"

4 comments:

Chartan said...

I wish that I could click on it and get a larger version so that I could see your strokes, but other than that I think it's really amusing LOL! I like it very much actually :D. Keep it up Anne. We'll get there, where ever there is...

I don't envy you having to engage with the business world, those business "politics" are insufferable.

Anne C M Campbell said...

Thanks for the comment Charlotte. Sometimes my photos can be enlarged and sometimes not. I don't know if this is Blogger being contrary, or my erratic method of posting. I am going to re-post this pic ultra large just for amusement. It will be up a short time, but the photography is not good at all. :)

Autumn Leaves said...

Anne, your words made me giggle a bit. Maybe because your angst echoes my own a bit...though I think your works are wonderful. Well...raw chops don't do much for me though! LOLOLOL But for some reason I like them anyway; I think because I sense both your sense of humor and a bit of something else going on with this painting! I agree with you about artists vs. business folks. Hands down no contest.

Anne C M Campbell said...

Thanks Sherry. I said it was weird, but I chose this for the challenge of representing something ultra-mundane and not traditionally considered beautiful.