Anyway, between the cross country relocation, my assignments and two weeks spent chained to a desk doing concept art, I was left with very little time to prepare for IlluxCon this year. In addition to this lack of time, I was for a variety of reasons also short on new work to display. And so, given the circumstances, the best I could do as far as new work went was to paint a couple quick pieces that I hoped would be worth a darn. Work on these pieces was done while taking short breaks from painting my assignments at night after long days of concepting in-house in the weeks before IlluxCon, and their completion came down to the wire. Indeed I was expecting to have to varnish at least one of them during the show itself.
I decided that the first of these pieces would be figurative, and at the end of the day did not include any fantasy elements. It would be just a straightforward study. And were this a normal discussion of my work, I would show you a sketch at this point. However, where this piece is concerned, there was no sketch. I had a reference photograph I took of a model from a couple years ago (the same model that can be seen in my as yet unfinished and only recently unboxed personal piece), and a primed 5" x7" piece of hardboard. And some oil paint. And brushes and such.
Here is the result:
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| ©Steven Belledin |
Aside from what I've already said, there's very little to add. I guess I could say that I blocked the whole thing in in about two hours and then refined it in a second session that lasted about an hour. I guess I could also tell you that I enjoyed painting it quite a bit, and that I'm not entirely unhappy with the piece — especially given the fairly minimal time investment.
Tomorrow I'll show you the second one, which is quite a bit different.
I've felt that pull in two directions, to always have something new to share, but holding out until something profound is ready to share. I'm curious where your mind is at for your next piece.
ReplyDeleteI actually would have had new work to share were it not for excellent sales, quite frankly. But I think most of us are really hoping to make an impression with new work at shows like IlluxCon or Spectrum Live. I'd likely have completed my large personal piece, but there's no real guarantee that it would have happened or that I'd have wanted to eat the expense of shipping it across the country.
DeleteThat being said, these small pieces aren't exactly profound, but were done more as an exercise that (hopefully) might help me pay for the show. I wish I could have had more grandiose works to share, and I suppose given the circumstances I might have just bowed out of the show completely until I had a new wall's-worth of artwork. Instead, I plowed ahead expecting things to settle in time to accomplish everything. I fell far short of that goal, unfortunately.