Above the Sound

29 Jul Above the Sound

I think this might be a stinker but I’m not sure.  I can’t seem to give up on it.  It’s a little guy again (but wait till you see what I’m working on now!!!), as you can see by the bumpy canvas surface (should I be throwing more gesso on these?), and I’ve redone it a few times.  I think it’s just not very out there perhaps, but I also don’t want to black it over just yet.

I remember doing a pencil drawing in grade 8 art and thinking I was all that, but my teacher told me to keep going, really push those darker areas to dark, I wasn’t there yet.  My nose was a little out of joint but he was right. Of course.  So much of it is all about realizing when you’re in the middle and making yourself (or figuring out how to) go up to the next step.  I haven’t figured out that next step for this one (or many others) just yet, but I’ll keep it so it torments me!

Mr. Carter only lasted one year.  I think he was more of an artist than a teacher, and he was rumoured to have said that he was pretty much just teaching because it left him his whole summer free to do his art.  Lots of people in the school didn’t get him and didn’t like his quirkiness or brusque way.  I adored him and was so sad to see him gone when school started in September.  When he’d asked me what I wanted to “be” I said a nurse, pretty much because my mom had been one I think, and I wasn’t a big enough thinker to really think of anything else.  He said oh no, he didn’t really picture me as a nurse, and right then I dropped the whole idea.  Never spent another second thinking of it.  I do wish he had said what he did picture me as, because really I’m still sort of working on that, but he was right.  And he’s right about pushing the darks darker, and the colours richer, and just everything more.

So I’ll hang onto this island shot for now and wait to see what’s meant for it.