Saturday, January 20, 2018

Practice, practice, practice



The advice from legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker to aspiring musicians was: learn you instrument, practice, practice, practice - then forget all you have learnt.

The same advice holds true twice over for watercolorists striving to capture the nuances of the nude figure. If my paintings of the nude appear at times repetitive, it is because practice is repetitive. Over the course of a lifetime, I have learnt “my instrument” and in more recent years, in order to give my paintings freedom, I have strived to forget all I have learnt. 

My difficulty twice over is because I can only practice from the live model: and inspirational live models are few and far between. I'm not looking for beauty queens but models, of any age,  who can feel comfortable and proud in their own skin. If there's a potential new one out there, please get in touch!

Today's picture is the end result – three paintings in all - of my morning's session with my current inspirational model, Verlena. 

Over the years I have had poets, musicians, ballet dancers, cashiers, street vendors, teachers and doctors as models, but this is the first time that I've pleasure of working with a talented calligrapher!

I apologize for the abysmally. low picture quality but my main computer and best camera, thanks to hurricane Maria, are out of action.

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