portrait peek

Nothing like spending a good part of the day dealing with the vagaries of digital printing and the inability of a machine to render colours accurately. Or is it the machine? Could it be the machine operator who may not have told the printer what it had to do? This could be a long debate.

It did remind me how much more fun it is to mix paint and apply it to canvas and not have to deal with intermediaries like computer, printer or the printer operator in the case of having work printed elsewhere by people who "know better".

Time is running short and this portrait piece needs to get done, no later than tomorrow. There are currently two more paintings waiting... like planes waiting to land at Heathrow airport in London... circling around patiently waiting to get all clear from the tower.

Lots of layers of glaze and more adjustments.... and taking care not to overwork it... although I believe I may have already. My inner critic is a mean person who is never happy with the work I do....Enter dear Hoarknockle with gin and tonic which always quietens the critic down a lot. Either that or G&T makes me deaf. Who knows?

I have added a last trompe l'oeil effect in the form of a sticky note which seems to be attached to the painting. Rather like a fun dessert after a big meal, I'm enjoying this last little tweak. The critic within seems to have lost the battle temporarily.

The wolf painting is watching me from the other side of my studio table. Lots to be done and I shall be away for all of next week on a skating retreat with Michael who will be perfecting his technique of speed on long thin tongues of burnished steel, shimmering across 400 meters of flawlessly perfect Olympic ice from Games long gone.

Lady Sandra is recovering well.

Here is a tidbit of the portrait piece. Not wanting to show too much before I deliver it into the hands of T and D... the proud parents.

Hoarknockle is coming down the passageway to my studio and I can hear the surreptitious clink of glass and ice. Good Heavens! Its friday!