Knock on Wood

I am continuing with my program of portraits on heavily gessoed wood and/or canvas. I actually prefer the wood surface as a foundation. To that end I made a trip to Lowe's, whose slogan is "Let's Build Something Together." (Gene Hackman says it so cheerily you just want to go out to the nearest big oak and construct a playhouse.) In my case, I grabbed a big piece of thin plywood and had the lumber guy cut me twenty 11 x 14 wooden rectangles. Total cost: $18. I really do like the combination of wood, gesso and rubbed-on paint. The crude relief surface seems to match up with my crude, primitive portraits. Jan had me put eight of them on one of our walls. (One of them is included here.) I think eight is a bit excessive. But Jan seems quite happy. (I should marry this girl.) Excited about the next series I plan to do on the wood backgrounds. With any luck (knock on wood), I'll report back shortly.

Community College Dropout

Since my last posting I signed up for a course in Classic Portraiture.  My good painter friend, Mary Baxter of Marathon, TX, warned me that it may be detrimental to learn the right way to paint portraits.  She was right.  The teacher was great but she wanted us to paint as if every square inch was a mosaic, a tile, with a different color setting.  I'm too ADD for that.  So back to my experiment with portraits on wood.  I am still trying to figure it out but that's the fun of it. Here's a sepia portrait of a young girl from a photo by Michael O'Brien.  Thanks, Michael.  More to come...I hope.