The final weeks of Find Your Joy delved a little deeper into color and the main thrust of the class - contrast in tone, saturation, temperature, and variety in mark making. The end of the class focused on working in a series (which is what I almost always do) and intention. Finishing this class I feel like I’m at a point of continuing to paint my “the space between” figurative portrait series and/or moving into “find the figure” paintings (and hour of abstraction and an hour of uncovering the figure. The first relies on a model as the source of inspiration (and thus the logistics are more difficult). The second is more self-reflective and abstract - more fantasy. A friend once said I didn’t need a model because I just make it up anyway. I’ve never thought that was true. Each series, each painting is unique to that particular individual (at least they look that way to me.) If I wanted to paint “generic” figurative abstracts I could do that. But there is something more I want to express and I still haven’t found the right means of expression, so I think, for now, I’ll keep working on the “space between” using the lessons I’ve learned to get closer to finding the best visual language. I think the self-portrait in this group is a new step but it all depends on the next model.
