Gathering Stones

I've been thinking of the word, "gather." In 2020, instead of gathering with loved ones who live outside of our homes, we are gathering our memories. Some of us are burrowing and nesting for the winter months. I am grateful for my books and art supplies, the tools that I use to process, ponder and understand the world around me. 

I've been looking at how other artists paint faces. Edvard Munch. Henri Matisse. Richard Diebenkorn. David Park. 

"After all I did not create a woman, I made a picture," Matisse famously said when people were shocked by his Green Stripe portrait of Madame Matisse. 

It's not that I think I'm on par with any of the artists that I just mentioned (I have quite a long way to go) but I am eager to learn from them. I want to paint what I see and not what others expect (or what they see.) Often, I don't even want to paint what I expect.

I keep fussing with the image above and I've had a few different thoughts and paths for it but I'm leaving it alone and moving onto the next one for now. Yes, this is the first picture I've written on since the end of May.

Supplies used:

Journal I made from hardcover book and 100 lb Accent Opaque cardstock size 13 1/4 x 20" opened

Acrylics: Holbein, Sennelier, Utrecht and Golden

Stabilo Aquarellable pencils 

Derwent Inktense pencil

Painting knives 

Brushes

.35 Rapidosketch Pen

Princeton Catalyst Tools

Looking at: Edvard Munch, Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Henri Matisse

Reading: Edvard Munch an Inner Life

Listening to Karl Ove Knausgaard speak about Edvard Munch (he wrote one of my favorite books of all time on Munch, So Much Longing in So Little Space.)