Portrait copy after Colleen Barry

It's been harder to find time to do projects at home lately, since I've been trying to spend a few hours at the atelier 4-5 times a week. I spend the mornings and early afternoons just trying to keep up around the house, and when I get home in the evenings, it's like everyone has missed me or something ;) 

This is about a 3-hour copy of a Colleen Barry drawing I found on her blog. I just love the way she draws. It's really beautiful. And the play between her shapes is so sensitive and sophisticated. I'm not going to post a side-by-side because I'm using different materials and it's just not a very clear comparison (I toned my paper with watercolor, which is pretty different in hue than her paper, and she also seems to be using maybe a brown colored pencil? instead of graphite like I did here--if you're interested I'm sure you can find this image in a quick google search. she doesn't post many). But as I'm copying this drawing, I can sense that I'm not really understanding everything she's doing. There's a point where you're copying what you see, but not getting the underlying concepts that go with it. That's okay, I guess. I'll get it eventually.

This isn't exactly related, but it's on my  mind. There's been some talk around the studio lately about how to get students to transition from making academic studies to making paintings--the idea that many academic art students don't have a clear end goal in mind. The academic study shouldn't be the end goal, but should be a means to an end in creating meaningful compositions.

Which has got me thinking (again) about why I want to do this (there's plenty of time to think about these things while I'm pushing shapes around on that Bargue!). I read a book about Waterhouse about a month ago. I had seen some of his paintings previous to reading this book, of course, but seeing them all in succession, each one described in detail, was really interesting. Most of his pictures depict scenes from mythology or poetry. But what I find interesting is the common thread that runs through nearly all of them. He chooses a moment of decision, or the calm before the storm. Most involve beautiful young women. And there's almost always (even when the beautiful woman is the evil temptress), this feeling of empathy with that beautiful creature. Anyway, I've been thinking about that idea with other artists' work as well--what is the common thread that runs from painting to painting? What about themselves is that artist sharing? It seems like prolific artists tend to depict something about themselves that is deeply meaningful to them, and perhaps it isn't even conscious, but in some way, that thread comes out in everything they do throughout their lives (have you ever felt, while standing in front of a painting, that you are intruding on the artist's personal and private space? I have). Sargent is another favorite of mine, and though he mostly did portraits, I think the common thread that runs through his work is his keen observation of life and people. He was extraordinarily aware--and not just of the visual aspects, but the character aspects of his subjects as well.

So what will my driving force be as an artist? I guess I can count myself lucky, because I feel like I do have a pretty clear end goal in mind. And maybe that's an advantage of starting a little later. I've had some time to get to know myself and experience a little bit of life. If I had to say right now, I would say that the beauty of human relationships is what drives me (I don't know how you find the motivation to do this if you don't have an end goal in mind--that's confusing to me). I'd love to do a series of life-size nursing mothers someday. There are such beautiful compositional lines when a mother is nursing her child. And really sweet interplay in the gazes of mother/child. I love reading classic literature, and I come up with a lot of ideas while reading, too. I read Tess of the D'Urbervilles recently, and oh, there's this scene near the end where Tess is lying on a fallen slab of stone in the middle of Stonehenge (Stonehenge! I went there once, and it was just the most magical place). It's just before dawn, and Tess's lover is guarding her as she sleeps. What a beautiful scene--but again, the interest is in the beauty of the bond between the two people in the impending dawn (and doom--poor Tess). I want to paint it ;) 

So I guess it's important to keep these things in mind as I go through this academic training (and maybe start sketching some thumbnails for later use--why not?). Having ideas for paintings can actually be kind of frustrating when... hey! I can't paint (ha!), but I'll cling to it as a source of motivation, trusting that someday I'll be able to carry those ideas out to some extent.