About that painting of Durod

I'm torn. I kind of hate the painting. Then again, I seem to feel that way at some point about nearly everything I paint, so the feeling is immediately suspect. I wanted to get back to the heavy black line that worked so well for my still-favourite painting of Ms. Catalano, but it came out all cartoony.

On the other hand, when Jarvis came to visit this weekend, he was immediately like, "Is that Durod?" So I suppose the likeness isn't too terrible.

Tonight, I'm going to get drunk with another of my favourite artists, Rahkeen Gray (Grey?) I should check that. He has been one of my best friends since I moved to the city, so I should probably make sure I'm certain how to spell his frickin' name.

But yeah, when Rahkeen and I get together, we drink. It's what we do. Hopefully I can squeeze out some of his insights into this painting after a beer or three. I need the opinion of someone I trust.

Tonight I painted a good friend of mine I call Durod. We'll see in a few weeks if I still like the painting, but for now, it feels good to be working again in any meaningful way at all, and overall, I'm happy with it.

I've moved my painting bench to the window which now precludes the possibility of working with a model with my paint trough on the bench. So I've taken an old blanket and am using it as sort of a dropcloth on my bed, put a large piece of Masonite over that and then set up the trough. This allows me to be within easy reach of my materials on the bench and still work facing the model.

Durod's never posed for a painting so I kept it pretty simple and just had him sitting in a chair at the table across from my bed.

Of all the paintings I've done of Jen Catalano (the prospect of whom painting again has significantly increased lately- we've now got two sessions scheduled over the next few upcoming weeks), my very favourite is one that relied heavily on thick black lines, so I decided with this one to revisit that approach. I don't think I was able to achieve the balance I was looking for, but the blockiness is just what I wanted.

I was also able to work in my spider plant, a corner of the painting I did a month or two ago when I was drunk and stabbed the canvas with a wooden dowel, and my very first paint sketch of Jen into the composition. I'm not sure when the last time was I actually paid attention to my living space as potential subject matter. I may explore that more fully later on.