"Blond"

6x6", oil on canvas board

So I called this blog "Painting what feels right" for a reason: I want to create works that come from who I am. In fact, who I am today. Not tomorrow. Not when I was in college. And it feels like I'm starting something good with these faces I'm painting.

The way it came about was that I saw the work of Catherine Woskow, and was blown away by her head series. The paintings seem elemental, emotional, yet also have a focus on the surface qualities of the painting, on textures in the paint. Now, I love texture, but at the same time I've been moving more and more toward figurative work. But while I like some of the things I've done, it didn't seem like I had an arc, a direction. But doing these paintings of abstract faces, with a focus on paint and on character, feels right. Maybe I'll do some figures in there, too.

I've started working small, at least at first. I learned from the still lifes I used to do that executing a lot of small paintings, and doing them frequently, makes you learn really fast.

You know what's weird? I still don't know why I love these. I mean, they're not normal. They're not what people usually want on their walls. They're hard for most people to live with. But maybe a head, a face, is the most basic form of a human picture? Could be. Whatever, it feels right! And that's what matters.