it's true that less is more...

The last two or three days I've been struggling with the background to the portrait of the new glasses. I had a pretty OK version happening, a neutral scene taking ideas from somewhere between my studio and his house, using a lot of scumbling, creating the perfect background for the wall it might hang on. But it didn't feel right. I painted four different versions. Three were good. But still it didn't feel right. I photographed the painting, and looked at it on the computer. I still prefered the plain unpainted version on the earlier blog post.

I took a lunch break. I came back to it. Intuition had said leave it plain. The rest of the portrait is not too bad. I worked again, warming, brightening, lightening. It was going well. But suddenly, I did it. I completely wiped out the background, and the rascal was there again, larger than life, exactly as he is. He had become lost in my thinking brain.

It wasn't so hard, in the end, really. I took a big brush of white acrylic, made a few bold movements, and the background picture was gone. No baggage, no trying to conform, no wondering which skin to wear. Felt great! His personality is back in the picture.

And that's how it should be. I am painting a portrait, not a picture. There is a difference.