acrylics

Soon after I completed my short course in painting portraits with acrylics, I got my first commission to make one. As it was commissioned by close family, I’m not sure if it qualifies as proper commission, but I agreed to make one for the equivalent of another course on painting portraits with watercolours. I don’t know why I had the idea that I could complete a portrait in a week when it took me almost five weeks to work on my class assignment, but hey–time is like an accordion to the neurodivergent mind. So, I delayed starting on the portrait. I did a couple of studies and for some reason my brain registered this as: I have completed the assignment (which of course is far from true).

Anyway, the start of watercolour class was announced and in the lead up to it, I found myself completely immersed in this completely new to me medium. Of course, I had played with watercolours as a child. But I never quite liked it. I found out that it wasn’t my fault, but it was because I didn’t have the proper tools for making good watercolours. Ha! I find myself wondering how many children give up on artmaking because they just don’t have the right tools. Of course–as people say–artists will find ways and means to make art and when I look back, I realise that I was always making art. It wasn’t art in the conventional/traditional sense of how people in my surroundings defined art (art=painting). I wasn’t painting, but I was constantly busy with cutting and pasting and layering things. I was curious about things that were discarded and what could be done with them. When I was a teen, I started using threads and cast away materials. I dried weeds and made cards. I collected pieces of thrown away marble flooring and tried writing on them. Eventually, I combined these with other things and the small projects I started in my parents’ garage bloomed into quite a hectic business. (I confess, I didn’t like it as much once it became hectic business and that probably says a lot about me.)

So anyway, back to the title of this blogpost.

The reason why I was asked to make this portrait was because the portrait I made in class came out so well. Getting it there took me sitting at the easel almost everyday. Carefully observing my reference photos and decided which colours were best. It was me also remembering the way my cousin’s smile looked and what it was about her character that I wanted to capture on the canvas. And the portrait succeeded because I knew my subject really really well. I could close my eyes and see the way she walks, the way she tilts her face to the side, the way shadows play across her face and most of all, I could see the gentleness and the joy shining through her eyes. And that’s what I put on the canvas. As one of my classmates said: she makes me want to smile back at her.

Back to this portrait. On the first day, I did the drawing and filled in light and dark hues. I had my colour palette, and yet somehow it wasn’t working. At the end of day one, I had a stern looking figure on my canvas and another figure who looked like an alien. Skin tone was nowhere near anything human. I stared at the portrait and thought: I think I’ll just go back to using pastels and watercolours. Those are more fun.

Second day: I’m one day away from my self-set deadline. Anything I layer on makes my figures look even more alien. They no longer look anything like the reference picture. Even worst, the main figure looks so unlikeable and scary, I want to throw my brushes on the floor and burn the canvas. I don’t do these things, but I admit I was pretty close.

Self-set deadline day: The portrait is not finished. I don’t know how I’ve managed to turn two humans into beings who look like they’ve come from Mars. I no longer think of them as people. I think of them as subjects–characters who refuse to bend to my will. My paints and brushes keep going, but good grief, my instruments are not making magic happen.

Thankfully, I’m given a reprieve. I don’t have to deliver the portrait just yet. But the person would like to see an in-progress work.

I’m crying. I can’t show this horrible canvas to anyone.

I go to bed and pray. Dear God, I say. Please (please please) I know this is such a tiny ping in all the important things happening around the world, but if you could send me a dream–something that will help me resolve this, I would be ever so grateful.

Here is a detail I remember from my dream. I’m a child crying over this portrait and I’m sitting at the feet of this big person. You need time to make a painting, the big person says. Each layer makes a painting richer, this is why you can’t rush a painting. Look, you should try using yellow ochre and don’t be afraid to mix your colours with white.

I don’t know if there was more, but when I wake up, that remains with me.

I head up to the attic and start squeezing colours onto my palette. Yellow ochre and white and my basic colours. I decide to not use the flesh coloured paint that I’d used previously. I don’t know if it will work, but I start painting. And somehow, things just click into place. The main character now looks kinder and more approachable–just like the person I see when I leaf through the album in my head. The second character looks kind and inquiring–and his skin looks human. I mix in some cadmium yellow, a bit of red…it’s coming together. Burnt sienna and ultramarine blue and some of that white for my shadows. It’s intense, but looks natural. I’m not quite there, but now the painting has more flow.

I think of how the things worth bringing into the world cost time and effort and energy. The act of creating something asks something from us and gives something to us as well. Maybe AI could make a painting much faster than I could, but I wouldn’t be getting the same insights I get from making this painting myself. Everything worth bringing into the world is worth the journey that it takes to bring it into being. And this is why we can’t rush art. We can’t rush stories. And I can’t rush a painting.

To you who have taken the time to stop by and read this, I hope you find something to inspire you on your own journey. Thank you for reading and may you be blessed.