Matched paintings
In March, my sweetheart and I met his parents in Florida.
From the moment we landed, I was blown away by just how different nature looks in that state.
The flora was no less exciting than the fauna…
...and, within a few minutes of being on the beach, I had already made new friends.
I’m not actually sure if this spider is covering two of her eyes in order to play peekaboo or simply because she’s camera-shy.
photo by David
As usual, I couldn’t resist putting my feet in the water…
...and…
...chasing the gulls.
photo by David
I guess I haven’t grown up yet.
And I’m not the only one.
photo by David
David and I were there to celebrate his father’s 70th birthday.
I had been working on my gift for Ron for a while…
...as well as a gift for Lucille to go with it.
As is always the case with diptychs, I worked on the two paintings together.
Every time I did something to one of them…
...I usually found a reason to do it to the other as well.
The most obvious example of this is that the colors I mixed for one usually made their way into the other.
But, while this technique is useful for unifying the separate but matched compositions, it also helped me to jumpstart these paintings when I couldn’t figure out what they needed next.
It’s not unusual for me to be at a loss for what to do next with a portrait, so, when I’m working on a pair of portraits, I use their related nature to keep me moving.
When one wasn’t working, I turned to the other to give me ideas for both of them.
Of course, sometimes only a drastic refreshing of the composition can get a painting started again, and that happened with this diptych.
I washed over the portraits in white and then went in with a pencil to rediscover the structure I was lacking.
I started this pair of paintings in the first half of 2009 and, like most of what I had going in the studio at the time (including the majority of this series), they suffered from a lull later in the year when I was recovering from a major and unexpected surgery.
Almost everything I had going pre-emergency had to go through some kind of reboot for me to work on again because I was in such a different headspace when I sat down to paint at the end of 2009.
In the end, I think the works are stronger for the difficulties they went through.
And, too, the paintings were greatly helped by each other throughout the process.
Gwenn Seemel
Ron and Lucille
2010
acrylic on panel
12 x 18 inches (combined dimensions)
The back-and-forth of a pair of matched portraits makes them exciting to work on and even a bit easier as well.
detail image of Ron
detail image of Lucille
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CATEGORIES: - Process images - Practice -
(3) Comments / Commentaires: Matched paintings
Great work! Gwen should be famous!!
What beautiful work! I love how your portraits convey something of the subject’s personality. In a similar way, your diptychs convey something of the relationship between the two subjects. I get a great feeling of affection, warmth and a stong bond between these two from seeing the diptych. They really do seem to be interacting with each other first, and with the onlooker second!
ron...
Wow! Now I feel famous!!
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