543 Zhou Xuan

Zhou Xuan

oil on cradled canvas board

6x6"

$100

     Zhou Xuan is a Chinese actress and singer, very popular from the 30's. She is so pretty and delicate. You Tube has a recording of her singing. Hearing it made her come so alive for me.

La Brunette

Oil on Canvas

7x5"

$100

     I have painted her before and she did not look any more like her then than she does this time. She is perfectly perfect. You would think all I needed to do was line everything up and there would be her likeness. I must have made some mistakes in lining everything up. She is still a pretty face and I like that.

Ginger

Oil on Canvas

6x6"

$100

     I love working with the limited palette. It gives me much more interesting shadows in the little faces. This is ultramarine blue, alizarin, and yellow ochre, and white.

V Lake

V Lake

Oil on Canvas

6 x 6"

$100

     I needed a blonde to add to my collection. I chose Veronica with both eyes showing. I thought she was cute in Sullivan's Travels.

Jenny

Jennifer

Oil on Canvas

6 x 6"

$100

     The more I look, the more I want to add this, nudge that, adjust here and there. Finally, I say there is no way to be finished. It is time to stop. 

     This is Jennifer Jones quite young. I think I will try her again sometime in her later years.

Garconne

Louise Brooks

Oil on Canvas

7x5"

$100

     I have recently been fascinated by limited palette and have examined several. For this painting I used the most limited I found: ultramarine blue, alizarin permanent, and yellow ochre (and white, of course).

     I am so amazed by the unity and range of color. I struggled with the painting and the process went haltingly, but I am pleased and eager to try another soon. 

     As for Louise Brooks, she is very cute with her bob, little bitty straight eyebrows, and pouty lipstick. They called the look Garconne. Louise is from the 20's, an earlier period than I usually use, but I like her very much. 

     The image from the internet that I used was not good resolution. She was a little out of focus. Maybe that is just as well.

Ava's Hat

Ava's Hat

Oil on Canvas

6x6"

$100

     Ava Gardner--pure beauty. They say she had auburn hair and green eyes. I like to think she was also nice and smart. I have painted her before and will paint her again. But those Hollywood photos are so manipulated with back light and fill light that you cannot get a good light source effect, so I just make it up the best I can.

Lovely Rita

Lovely Rita

Oil on Canvas

6 x 6"

$100

     This face turned out fairly good. When they do not turn out, I could blame it on their faces being just too hard to paint, but that is impossible. They are some of the world's best faces, very symmetrical, perfectly aligned, ideally composed. The true problem lies in the artist and her ability to make them as beautiful as they really are.

   

Not Gene

Not Gene

Oil on Canvas

6x6"

$100

 

     Painting these little faces is my favorite studio time. I always start with someone specific in mind, but as I paint, the face so often turns into someone else. That someone seems so real to me that I allow it to be and enjoy it instead of fretting over not capturing the likeness I had in mind at the beginning. I realize this kind of thinking would not take me very far if I were in the portrait painting business.

Ava 2

Oil on Canvas

6x6"

$100

I have a lot to say about this. First, my subject is so fabulous that it is impossible to capture even a fragment of her beauty. Second, this is not what I am aiming for. I wanted it to be much more abstract, but I got caught in the process of finding her presence that I forgot to be expressive with my paint. Some faces are easy to paint and others resist it. This one resisted. I worked very hard on it. I should have known I was heading down the wrong path. If it is that hard, I am probably too deep into the parts that I do not want to paint but that are jumping up and down demanding attention. I want it to be a painting, not a drawing. 

So am I going to keep it? Yes.

Lauren

Oil on Canvas

6 x 6"

$100

     Faces. Without doubt, my favorite thing to paint. I am currently choosing the black and white photographs of the actresses of the 1940's. The lighting is usually interesting, and the poses are a mixture of allure and innocence or pure sophistication. I prefer that to the broad, heavy-handed treatment of sex-appeal that is so often used these days.

Yellow Scarf

Oil on Canvas

6x6"

$100

     Painting from photographs can be tricky. The camera does not see as well as our eyes do to discern subtle variations in color and shadow. But when you try to paint from the black and white glamor photos from the 30's and 40's, it gets even trickier. The photographers would use back light, fill light, and I don't know what else. It is hard to know where the light source really is. Very tricky. But the beauty and glamor is thrilling to paint. I think I will never tire of it. Meanwhile, I get to work on my color theory. Nothing in a B&W to influence and confuse me.