copyright ⓒ2009 Alexis Pierre-Louis, all rights reserved
Today I’ve finished the background and have started on the hair. I have highlights and low-lights now, I want to go back and create mid-tones. The eyes still need work, the mask needs work, and I’m still debating whether I want to keep the painterly brushstrokes on the face, lips, and neck. I’m leaning toward yes.
Painting, for me, is a way of expressing emotion. When the world outside gets to be too much, I like to retreat to my paints, brushes, and canvases and paint my cares away. The way the paint moves across the canvas, sometimes a scraping, dry brush stroke, sometimes a luscious, creamy slide, sometimes a slippery, watery glide–it’s all magical to me. No, it’s more than magical, it’s spiritual, it’s meditative practice, it’s almost like a silent prayer.
I can’t remember who, but someone once talked about the happy accidents that occur in painting, and it’s true. Sometimes things you didn’t plan just magically occur and your painting is the better for it.
