Prompt

My guiding prompt for this image was “Grief and Recovery.” As with the others, this doesn’t mean the end painting needs to be strictly glaringly about these words, but they are there to guide my decision making.

I was considering my coffee mug symbol, used in prior work to represent my job/career, and how in my Part 3 assignment this became an anchor holding me down. I was thinking about how we hold onto things, and how they bring us hope and stress sometimes in equal measure.

Going into this project, senior decision makers at my company started making noises about a positive change. So, again, I’m holding onto hope despite it feeling like everything is burning down around me.

Small Test

30x30cm test panel

Thoughts

  • The red undertone gives this a sense of menace in many ways.
  • I need to adjust the hand — it is far out of scale (or crazy close to the viewer) and it looks off. It also doesn’t look like it is holding the mug. Queued up to fix.
  • The background is sort of generically dark — likely because I painted in the wrong order (front to back) and so was reluctant to lean in and model a sky. I think I want to model a sky. dawn? vaguely? Give this a ‘time of day’.
  • The plant leaves are too tall, and too uniform.
  • What to do about Matt’s beard and hair, in this one?
  • Newspaper area needs to call back to Binding Decisions, so more thought needed there.

Full Size

I neglected to take earlier photos. The panel is under-painted in cadmium red. In the above, I’ve just added the newspaper (just on the lower ‘half’), did the plan in charcoal and painted in some unsatisfying trees and sky.
Adding Matt’s face, and fighting with the unsatisfying background, and originally planned elements.
After fighting with the trees, and sky, then getting an interesting work-related call, I replaced the sky with a more aggressive, energetic sky full of turmoil. I like this result, and kept working at it in pieces.
Bringing the sky through the model’s body. At this stage, you can see the break in the newspaper and I liked this ‘raw’ edge effect.
Bringing his body back in, roughly. Bringing in the ocean, darkening the shore, and attacking the newspaper with tools to peel it up.