Colour!

On Instagram, I took part in the ten day challenge.  That is an opportunity to post older work for ten consecutivve days. I don't often look back, and the task of choosing was interesting.  One thing that I noticed was that, in general, my work (of late) is much bolder and brighter, not to mention more detailed than what I was doing before. People liked my older work, and so do I, but what I'm doing now makes me happy, now.

Today I finished a piece that reminds me of a hawaiian shirt. That is an after-thought, but if I were shopping, it would be the shirt I would choose.

Self Portrait in Eden, egg tempera on panel, 30 x 22 cm, March 2021

Last week was about romance and the cliche of red of pink (Bridgerton style). It turns out painting all that red is tough, though.

Me and My Duke, egg tempera on panel, 30 x 25cm, Feb 2021

The week before was about colour and pattern and the hope of warm weather and would the pandemic be over enough for a trip to Maine.

egg tempera on panel, 30 x 22 cm, Feb 2021

                                         

And before that I wanted to bring the sunshine inside and painted a tribute to some beautiful golden apples.

Golden Apple Days, egg tempera on panel, 26 x 26 cm, Feb 2021

Looking at myself

(study) Self Portrait in Red Chair - egg tempera on panel - 15x20

So I had lots of goals when I began the little egg tempera study. Reading Bonnard I thought about this statement: 'The artist who paints the emotions creates an enclosed world... the picture... which, like a book, has the same interest no matter where it happens to be. Such an artist, we may imagine, spends a great deal of time doing nothing but looking, both around him and inside him.' Patrick took a photo and using that in black and white, a mirror and my intuition I tried to project something about myself. I looked at Bonnard, in particular ' Vivette Terrasse c.1916.https://my-museum-of-art.blogspot.com/2014/02/pierre-bonnard-vivette-terrasse-c1916.html 

I wanted to make the surface exciting but to draw the viewer to my gaze.

Self Portrait in Red Chair - oil on canvas - 40 x 50

When I  finished the egg tempera I primed a canvas with kings blue and used the leftover paints from before Christmas that were still on my glass palette. I think I did that to avoid delay and maybe because I could blame the colour choices on that… mostly though I just wanted to get something down. At first it was really loose but I found that I wanted to do something that felt complete at the end and I didn't know how to do that without getting more explicit. I looked at Bonnard more and I looked at Julie Held. I have worked on this a bit more - the left side of the chair and the wall and the vase all  work better, but haven't photographed it yet.