The Horned Goddess

[helenic]

So after going to the studio job interview (I still haven't heard back; I assume that's a no) I came home thinking about commuting to Battersea every day and painting by numbers, and two days later I started this. I guess the reason I haven't been painting much lately is that if I'm going to be painting I should be finishing Bast. And yet Bast has achieved the heavy, moss-gathering procrastination of all projects that have sat fallow for over a year; picking them up and digging into them again requires a mental effort so enormous that I don't know how to make space for it. Each day that goes unstarted adds another layer of guilt to the whole process, making it even harder to start. And while all this has been going on - since I decided that right, this was it, this was the week I was going to start Bast, Bast was the next item on my to do list - I haven't done any painting. Because if I'm painting, I should be working on Bast.

Two days after this job interview I realised that the wrong painting was better than no painting, and I started work on this. The night before I'd been sketching painting ideas in my notebook, and I wrote a note for myself: Tomorrow: paint. Do some. I don't mind what. Just do some. It worked. Sometime in the afternoon I decided to hell with it, I'd just start. I had a piece of wood downstairs which I'd rescued from a skip; it was dry and solid and not warped. I'd been meaning to saw off the L shape so it was cut down to a plain rectangle, and I'd also meant to plane off the plaster splashed on one side. But I realised that trying to do these things would mean I'd get stuck on trying to find my housemate's workbench and a saw, and that I should just undercoat it as it is and sort the DIY out later. So I just started painting, and I've painted pretty much every day since then. There's an old saying that a painting is never finished, it's just given up on, and after working on it solidly for two weeks I think I've finally given up on this.

The Horned Goddess
Acrylic on wood, 20" x 35"
(for sale)

I decided to work in acrylic, because this was never meant to be one of my long, complicated, personal projects that I get perfectionistic about and which then lie unfinished for over a year because I can't bear to return to them after such a long absence. Acrylic is quick and sketchy and dirty and I've only ever used it working collaboratively, and you can't get precious about the shading or the layering because it dries fast and sometimes in unpredictable shades, and I don't really know how to use it professionally because my good work has only ever been done in oils.

Ahaha. That was the idea, anyway. The first couple of days went marvellously. I was fast, I was producing dynamic, interesting painting, it was unlike my usual style, I thought I might be finished in another couple of days.

On the third day, I decided that I didn't like the face. It was too model-perfect, all cheekbones and lips and high-contrast lighting. It looked like the head was a completely different painting from the rest of the body. I didn't want the face in the painting to be tediously, conventionally pretty. I wanted her to be characterful, non-White, vaguely earth-motherish. When I talked to Denny about this, Denny said that he'd wondered if the face was meant to be of cyrus_ii. It hadn't, but the idea pleased me; I texted cyrus_ii to let him know, and he replied saying he'd wondered the same thing himself.

So I decided that cyrus_ii should model for the painting; it seemed appropriate, with the general gender-queerness/androgyny of the image. I then changed my mind in a fit of paranoia and spent two days trying to get the right feminine look for the face, and failed, ending up even more cheekboney and generic than before. So cyrus_ii came round and sat for me and I spent a fascinating day effectively grafting his beautiful, unusual, androgynous face onto the conventionally-pretty face I'd painted the day before. I learned a lot from this, but cyrus_ii's physical beauty arises, as does most physical beauty, from the harmonious combination of features which are extraordinary in isolation, and my hybrid face ended up looking very odd indeed. So I started working back into it, keeping the changes I'd made around the jaw and cheekbones and nose, but trying to create a face that looked like it was all one face rather than a hybrid of faces.

I didn't manage it. I worked on it for another four days before I gave up. I'm still unhappy with the face; I feel like I'm right back to square one, too model-like, too airbrushed. I've padded her cheeks out, thickened her neck, broadened her nose and her forehead and her jaw and given her a sticky-out chin and bags under her eyes and she still feels this way, and every time I scrubbed out the face and started again it was demoralising. I was destroying good painting (technically speaking) every time I painted over it, and each effort felt less successful than the last. Eventually I realised that I was never going to be able to sell this painting for enough money to cover the time spent on it so far, so I should just cut my losses and call it a day.

Day 1




Day 3 - the first face that felt too "model-like". I honestly believe I'd have done better to polish up this version and stop there. Or maybe not even polish up anything other than the face - I actually really like the sketchiness on the rest of her.




Day 7ish - the first attempt to integrate the hybrid androgynous face into a single face. This felt even more airbrushed and tedious than the version before cyrus_ii sat for me; I re-painted it twice more before finally stopping.

I didn't manage to get a photo of the painting after the sitting with cyrus_ii, which is a shame.

The face isn't the only thing I'm unhappy about with this painting. Her head is too big for the rest of her body; when you look at her neck and jaw her ribcage seems distressingly narrow in comparison. Her body, while not athletic, is not as curvy as I'd been aiming for, and her thighs are too short. The hands - ack.

On the other hand, this was a painting I did for me, because I wanted to, and the basic premise of the painting is communicated just as effectively whatever her face looks like. It's got me into a routine where I've been getting up every morning, doing my admin and other work, having lunch, and then starting to paint. I've painted every afternoon apart from two where I had to do CSS work and I spent both those days longing to paint. I've been painting on the weekends. It's made me very, very happy, and I'm determined to keep up this rhythm when I get back from Glastonbury, as long as I can possibly afford to. I might even start modelling again. It wouldn't feel like selling out if I was actually painting the rest of the time, rather than just talking about it.

This is also the first in what I suspect will be a long series of Goddess Paintings With Breasts In. You have been warned.

Comments

[lemonmerchant.livejournal.com]

I am deeply in time, here. There are a few very specific pieces that I should work on with my viola, for example. I have concluded with implacable certainty that if I am not going to work on those pieces, it is far better to play any other thing than not to play at all.

In addition, I would like to say Up The Goddess Paintings With Breasts In, and interpret your warning as a sort of rallying call.

[ailbhe]

I'd like to spend more time looking at it but actually those proportions look very familiar to me. I recognise her body.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. The body as you see it in the first picture (http://www.wax-and-wane.org/trad/08hornedgoddess-wip5-wm.jpg) was painted entirely freestyle, then I got hold of photo references for the breasts and took a photo of myself with my arms in that position so I could get the arms and hands and shoulders and neck right, which is maybe why her shoulders and neck are skinnier than the rest of her, because mine are quite bony. I'm not very good at sketching figures freestyle, though - normally I use photo refs from the start, rather than bringing them in later for the details. At least it's reassuring that her proportions aren't wildly unrealistic - familiar is better than implausible :)

[ailbhe]

It looks like a slightly underfed hardworking sturdy peasanty body, to me.

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

you paint awesome boobs.

[mercuryneedle.livejournal.com]

I love reading such inspiring texts like this! It's fascinating the read about work that other artists are creating!

I've had an epiphany recently myself in regards to my photography, which i feel, for the last two years whilst at uni, has been growing far too stale. Not wild like when i began real photography by developing in my bedroom- the sensuality of the smell of fix; the 'mad, Frankenstein-esque, soul devouring moments, when you get into an artistic frenzy and basic living becomes second rate to art- I miss this so so much.

This year, my resolution whilst at uni is to enjoy my work and remember who i'm doing this for- me, nd not to satisfy my uni.

sometimes you have to set yourself targets in tick points to make sure you do something- but thoroughly rewarding when you do it. You're going he right way about doing things, and I envy you entirely ^_^

oh, and I would love to model for you when i have the time. we can discuss a-plenty what to do. I'm thinking scifi....

[thene]

Funny thing is, my first impression was that the body was athletic - those strong arms and legs, like a swimmer, perhaps. I like the round-bellied Day 1 shape. I really like the use of the Aries symbol - that's not an analogy I've ever seen before.

[aiwendel.livejournal.com]

I really like the face...
A bit drunk right now and can't currently judge the proportions. It doesn't look bad. Try measuring yours in a mirror with a pencil/paintbrush handle/ruler etc and compare if you're worried.
:)

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Alas, I like the sketchiness of the arms in the Day 3 picture, too! There's something almost-Cubist about it, the kind of deconstruction rather than construction of the body. And the eyes on her are really intense.

[i-am-toast.livejournal.com]

he basic premise of the painting is communicated just as effectively whatever her face looks like

Perhaps this is part of the problem? Whilst I like the painting (especially in the Day 3 stage) you were trying to make a point that is so thrust in your face no-one gives a toss what the rest of the picture looks like. You could have made your point as effectively had you taken a photocopy of a painting of a curvy woman and stuuck your scrawled womb over ther top.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

Ha. I thought that was quite a masculine face. But I think the face/body problem is as much a matter of colour and texture as of size; her face is rougher-textured and has richer, more reddish-brown colours than the rest of her body, so the impression is of thickly-applied makeup.

The proportion thing struck me as a more minor issue initially, although the more I stare at it the weirder it looks. I think it's that if you view from head to lower edge of breasts, the proportions look fine; if you view from knee to shoulders, the proportions also look fine; it's the head/waist/hip ratio that does it. Also, I'm looking at the last photo for this, and I just noticed that the lower end is slightly tipped away, exaggerating the disproportion somewhat.)

Also, for an earth goddess, she's going to have some serious issues with penetrative sex. Ouch.