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Putting the life into it

There are some pictures I sell.

And there are some pictures I won’t sell.

The ones I won’t sell have a strong sentimental value for me because they were very special at some point in my life and perhaps for that reason more of “me” went into them, maybe. Having said that I’ve always been an artist who paints stuff because its a way of expressing myself in my art as well as happily painting pictures for other people to help them express something within themselves that they want within a painting.

Some of the pictures on my own walls are those special ones. Not all of them, certainly, I change some around when I want to view new ones. If I had more wall space I would happily fill it with my own artworks. I don’t mean JUST my artworks, I love other artists stuff as well, but I am more than happy to look at my artwork for the reason it inspired me and see how I tackled the challenge of it.

But yesterday morning I looked and looked again at one that I painted maybe ten years ago, that I have always valueAttituded and realised why it had leapt out at me when I pass it numerous times daily without much of a second look. Mmm….. yes, it was the way it was painted with that lovely soft depiction of the skin tones, and realised that it was because of the erotic painting I’m working on at the moment which is coming on nicely and I’m liking the way it’s looking that made me look close at this one. The older painting that made me look and look again was done in oils, and the new one is in acrylics. Neither are “right” or “wrong” for a painting, they just give slightly different effects. And in one way I prefer oils for skin tones as they have more of a buttery feel to them that blends beautifully in skin tones. Having said that with acrylics they might be less buttery but you can get some gorgeously atmospheric effects with them and also glaze with them in the same way that you can with oils. MMm…… this painting is inspiring for the one I’m working on, so I’ll show it to you here. Its called “Attitude” and was painted in three sittings from life. If you look at the skin tones you can see all the small changes in the tones in the flesh, see the form of the arms and breasts, and the light under the chin, the strong but delicate features of the face with fire in her eyes – hence the title of the painting. There are many parts of this painting I love, the soft hair as it hangs down and catches the light, the visual joke of the left foot pressed to her crotch making an inverted white triangle at the junction of her legs when it is more normal to see a black triangle of pubes. And the softness of the black leather as it catches the light and reflects back white light, coming to the right foot that is in the forefront of the picture so it should be in sharp detail, but it isn’t. This painting isn’t about her foot, its about that nipple bar that you can’t take your eyes off, its about her face, and its about her sexuality. If I had painted that foot in sharp detail you’d be looking at it, but you don’t because of the soft out of focus way I painted it. I’m showing you where to look by the way I painted that picture without me having to point at any part of the picture, you know exactly where to look.

And that is what I want to put into this erotic painting I’m working on at the moment. One picture feeds the other.

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