Her transformation

I’ve been in the studio quite a bit this past week but haven’t taken as many pictures as I should have.  I’ll take some more today of my painting, as it’s close to being finished…just a couple of days more work.  In the meantime, here are some photos from last week.

The Daphne painting – on day 2

You can see the clouds in the background slowly taking form, compared to the last photos of the painting I posted on the blog last week.  I love it when I can slowly see things develop and emerge from the painting, day by day, especially the face.  Sometimes going into a painting, I don’t know who will emerge from it, and many times, that face will slowly make itself known, and I work on it until I know that he/she is finished.  And it’s a little bit like meeting them for the first time; “So it was you all along!”

Daphne's face – detailed view

In these close up shots, you can really see the weave and texture of the canvas.  I actually prefer painting on wood panel, but for this series I returned to canvas after many years of painting on wood.  It’s taken some getting used to…I can’t get the same level of detail as I can using wood, but I really wanted to keep the raw canvas in these paintings, as it is a constant reminder that this is a painting, a representation, an illusion.  I think it lends itself well to the theme of myths too with this series, but I have to admit, I’m itching to get back to painting on flat panels.  I love its smoothness and the high level of detail and brushwork that shows in the final painting.

MDF board waiting to be cut and painted

I’m hoping to actually do my next couple of pieces on MDF panel.  These will be more of an experiment, as I’ll be cutting them into shapes and painting patterns directly onto these shapes.  I’ll be doing these in the next week or two so I will keep you updated with how it goes!