back in the saddle.

Boys and girls, I do believe I am back in the saddle. I am attempting to do a series of portraits I like to call, "Luck, Be a Lady." This is for my painting IV class and I am so lucky that I've got Sue as a teacher who believes that by this stage in school, you should be able to do whatever the heck you want.

I haven't painted a portrait since high school and that is all that I did in high school was paint portraits. The reason for such the drought of portraits in collage is fairly simple. I painted portraits from pictures because I loved painting my muses, until I showed up to my painting I class which sucked out all of the energy out from me. You can listen to me vent here in this past post. Yikes, I just read that post and holy cow was I heated. Basically, in collage, it is very much looked down upon to paint a picture from a photograph. For whatever reason, I simply say this, I don't really give a crap. But for the sake of my grade and learning experience, I nodded my head yes and stayed clear of painting from photos. That's when I began my abstract paintings because that is the direction my teachers pushed me towards. Now, I am not saying this ain't no blessing, because I actually find that it is. Without this push in a new direction, I wouldn't have known that I could create something that came from my mind and my imagination ONLY, and I didn't know that I was going to fall so in love with it. I also didn't realize that the art education at my school, well in the fine arts department, is geared towards abstract expressionism. I thought that was super strange since most fine artists are more traditional and look to Da Vinci and Vermeer for guidance.

Either way, I will continue to do abstracts for the rest of my life because I know that one day it will sell and please the eye of others and for me, it literally is a blast to do and spend my time and I gain a lot of confidence doing so, but I can't help but fall back on my one true forbidden love. And as a sixth year senior, yes six, I will do both and push all dirty looks aside. For senior studio, I will do a series of abstracts, and for my painting IV, I will do a series of portraits, from photos, mind you, with my own twist and style. And I will enter these portraits into my senior portfolio and they won't do nothing about it. So, to all this I say, I'm going out with a bang! And I'm back in my saddle baby!