This was a very early painting I did. I think it was my fourth painting. It was never my intent to be a realistic painter, but I always prescribed to the school of thought that every painter, no matter what style he/she eventually did, should have a solid foundation in realism. On the previous three or so paintings my skill at shading and color selection felt really…….. I don’t know. Erratic? Or inconsistant maybe is a better word. During some moments I felt I could get the shading looking the way I wanted and sometimes the ability would just leave me unexpectedly which was very, very frustrating. I decided to do this painting as sort of homework assignment to get down shading.
I took the image from like GQ or something. I selected it primarily because I thought it would be a challenge. It wasn’t. Whatever problems I was experiencing with shading in the past I guess worked itself out because I basically blew through it with very little trouble. I got pretty bored of painting it after a week or so which is why I never finished it. This began a streak of about four paintings that I left unfinished (I don’t know if it’s by coincidence or not, but these four paintings all have kind of a noir feel going for them.) Of those four this is the only painting that I didn’t destroy. Even though I never really had much of a desire to finish it, since it was so close to being done I felt it would be a shame to destroy it.
During my last show I showed a picture of this piece to a girl I met named Annie and she liked it and said that it looked good unfinished and that I should leave it as is and consider it done. It seemed like a good idea so I decided to fold it into my alphabet series.
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Great painting. Very 1940s feel to it. I can understand that if you didn’t find it a challenge then you would find it difficult to continue right through to the end – although it looks fine as it is as a study in light and shade.
Comment by Sean — November 10, 2010 @ 2:50 pm