Creating for Creation Sake
I’ve been into portraits the last month or so. This sketch seemed like it would make a fascinating portrait painting. All artist have signature things that they do in their subjects or with their palette that distinguished them and their style of painting from others. I’m no different. Here are some things I’ve noticed in most of my paintings and drawings.
DMJSketch
Why do I do this? It’s not like I am looking for something to make me different from another artist. Truthfully, I didn’t notice I was doing some of these things until I began taking pictures of them. So, I thought that I would take the time in this blog and dissect why I draw and paint the way that I do.
THE EYES: I think this is the most fascinating part. The eyes are considered the window to the soul. By looking into the eyes, truly, looking into the eye of another human, you can see the true self. Maybe with drawing one eye closed I am making sure the women portrayed here are not completely vulnerable. It could also be a mysterious thing. Mysterious is sexy. What keeps people coming back for more is knowing there is more to know. With my paintings allowing a partial soulful peak, there is always more to know – always something to come back and see and learn and grow from.
THE LIPS: Lips are a sensual part of the body. Women of my culture, in most cases, have beautifully full lips. I think that I draw the lips in this way to pay homage to my culture as well as making it prominent to the viewer the power of the lips (no matter what your culture or ethnicity is).
LEFT and RIGHT PROFILES: I think that the difference that I make in the facial features in the left and right profiles of my portraits is playing up the fact that no one is perfect. No one face is symmetrically the same and I making that fact dominant in my drawings and painting. It is a beauty in the imperfection.
Maybe every word I just shared is BS and the there is absolutely nothing behind these consistent characteristics in my works except habit. Stick with me and I think in a few months we will know. Below is the painting.
Painting created from the above drawing
I love color. I’m not sure why I use such vibrant colors. I’ve had friends and family look at these vibrantly painted portraits and say that even though they are bright and vibrant, there is still a seriousness and even sadness to the women portrayed here. They could be right. I haven’t looked too deeply into the emotional meaning of my works. Maybe in a different post.
There is one decision for sure that I made consciously about my color palette and that is that I would not paint any of my women with realistic flesh tones. I wanted people to see the beauty and uniqueness of these women without stumbling over the standards of beauty that society has placed on us. You have to kinda view these paintings differently than the every day woman. But, the hope is paintings like this will get viewers to look at women with a different eye and with different sensibilities than those that are socially accepted.
I guess you can see that I stand on the opposite side of society when it comes to defining beauty. Part of it is personal. I never got the knack of the acceptable beauty trends. Like any good artist, I made up my own trends. Until next weekend.