aloevera

practice, practice, practice.

I found some tiny canvases in my stash last week, and decided to work some more on painting. I was really stoked about it and I wanted to try something totally different from what I'm used to musing over. My intentions were to paint in a really messy relaxed style.. and some how I just couldn't let myself do that. I kept trying to blend everything in smoothly and then I'd get mad at my brain. I think the you need to learn the rules and perfect the skill before you can start breaking the rules and painting in more experimental techniques and styles. I tried to mess with the contrast and exposure as well, because if you look you can see its not uniform throughout the whole piece... her pupils being barely black yet the chair falling totally into shadow. I don't know if it just looks like I've done a bad job or if it's cool.. haha. I've seen it done so well before in some paintings and it's a really nice effect.

Also, canvas... i hate it. How is this still an acceptable surface for painting? It's so textured and difficult and distorting.. I much prefer smooth surfaces where you can just push the paint around and it glides like butter. Mmmmm.

This is oil on a 8 x 8 canvas