Kidz, Life, Art and Stuff II, 8" x 8", Oil on Board

KLAAS II-Kezia says a prayer before her breakfast

I was really a bit to anxious to paint this piece, that my impatience almost ruined the piece. I got lost in the lines and the drawing and whenever the drawing goes wrong in any painting of this nature....the doom is quite near! But thank God, I rescued it in the end by cooling down and focusing on what actually went wrong. I was so wrapped up in the piece that I didn't take many stage shots but the few here give an indication of my mind's process.

Recording these phases in the lives of my children is a very interesting exercise and I hope to develop this further, maybe into something the can look back in the future as a visual diary. I already have many sketches of Josh and Kezia in sleepmode, you can click HERE to see. I think it's very normal for artists to have their children as part of their painting subjects.

Lest I forget to say-I used the Anders Zorn palette for this piece too, which consists of 4 colours- Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red and Ivory Black.

Kidz, Life, art and Stuff II, 8" x 8", Oil on board-  

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STAGE 1- This is the 'gridding' process, always to make sure everything falls into place and its on solid foundation.  sometimes, I don't do 'gridding' but for safety purposes I go through the rigours of making these lines.

STAGE 2- This is where I lost it, as you can see, I was so anxious to start putting paint with completing the brush drawing...I was heading for disaster!

STAGE 3- After all the rushing, I ended up with a face that looked miles older than my daughter,  I knew I had lost a few lines with the profile drawing that I had to correct and on the hands and fingers too. This picture was also taken in poor light, so the colours are very wrong at this stage. This is a lesson I constantly have to learn over and over again even after all these years of painting. and it's HASTE IS THE ARTISTS WORST ENEMY!!!
I was happy to work a little more hours repairing but how better would it have been if I had made this piece at a steady pace, making sure each shape was correct as I went along.

SPECIAL QUOTE
I must have put this as a special quote before but I think it is more applicable here and it's, "PAINTING TOO FAST IS ON THE LIST OF COMMON MISTAKES AND DIFFICULTIES" by Richard Schmid