LET GO AND TRY AGAIN

"Buvver Fishing" by Martha Slavin

 An instructor once told me not to paint people I know because my hidden feelings about the person would arise as I painted. I don't paint portraits often, but I have followed that advice and have selected photos of strangers to use as models. I like to paint people, but I don't try to make the look exactly like the photo.

The Pacific Art League in Palo Alto offered a challenge this summer to paint something about my own memories. I was intrigued enough to look through old photos of myself growing up.

I found a photo of my sister and me as young children on the steps of the house we lived in until I was five years old. We spent time in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers, watching the chickens scramble around their pen, or running in a circle playing Ring Around a Rosie with some of my sister's friends. I decided to ignore the old warning of painting someone I know and tried to draw this photo.

I think of myself as good at drawing, but I don't draw children very often. I drew my sister without much trouble, but when it came to me, I got stuck. I drew the outside of the head too large and the features way too small. I realized that I kept thinking that the figure should be child-sized,  so my hand kept making them small in comparison to the space on the paper. I just couldn't get the proportions right.

Once I started painting, I came up with other problems. When I painted the skin tone, I used my usual facial formula of Cadmium Red Light mixed with Raw Siena. I found the tint was too weighty for a toddler, so I added a touch of Permanent Red to make it pinker. That didn't work at all, but nothing I did with my brush or Viva paper towel got me back to a light enough tone.

I decided to start over and drew just the faces and shoulders of the two figures. Again, I had the same problem with proportion. My mind kept thinking of the two as small and so the features shrank within the ovals I had drawn for the heads.

I decided to try again. I drew only one of the figures. She turned out to look like one of those children in a horror movie who you would find hiding in a closet. I decided I needed help, so I looked online for watercolor artists whose focus is painting young children. Going through the examples, I was reminded of the grid system that many use to help them draw.

Lightly penciled grid system

I have avoided the grid system all my life because I can still hear my art school and college instructors imploring us to draw a figure freehand so that we would learn to intrinsically understand the figure. Why I hung on to this belief is a bit of a puzzle. Why didn't I use helpful techniques when I needed them? My ego saying I can draw without these kinds of aids? Belief that drawing without crutches creates a better understanding of that form? A little bit of both, I think. This week, finally, I gave in. It was time for me to try something different. I drew a light grid, dividing the paper into sixteen sections. It worked. In my mind, I knew how to draw the figure to make it look believable, but the grid helped me get the proportions right.

I never know when I am going to learn a new life lesson.

Unfinished painting with work needed on skin tone