1970 Girl or Sad Face

201 1970 Girl or Sad Face 12 x 18 Circa 1970... more

by Aaron Aadamson

Title

1970 Girl or Sad Face

Artist

Aaron Aadamson

Medium

Painting - Acrylic On Cheap Water Color Paper

Description

201 1970 Girl or Sad Face 12 x 18 Circa 1970

This is one of my earliest forays into painting at around 21 yrs. old. The bun and head piece are actually a nice dark kelly green. The paper is very yellowed due to the poor quality of stock that I used. What did I know at the time; I was just getting started?

It was an experiment using a technique called blocking-using big blocks of color to set up your basic proportions. It ended up looking a bit like my first wife, Stephanie, with whom I was still lifeing (sic) at the time. It was very minimal, but it had reached a point where I liked it. (This was before Facebook "liking.") So I stopped. This act of feeling when to �stop� and listening to that feeling has most likely been the greatest influence on my approach to the way I do my art. I really like the suggestion of an image rather than a meticulous detailed laborious rendering of a subject, I think.

And I like to paint fast and be done with it. I did one of those paint by number things of a stag deer. I worked on it for a long time with those tiny little brushes that come with the set; it seemed to take forever. And when I was done, it was better than the norm--I did a lot of blending the edges, but the finished piece was not inspired and I wouldn't have liked it, even on Facebook. It just looked amateurish. So, that was the next greatest influence on me. I knew I didn't want to paint like that and end up with nothing all that special for all that much time and tedium.

Another lesson or discovery for me in doing this painting was the phenomenon of the �happy accident.� If you look at a close up detail of her eyes and the wonderful, mysterious expression on her face, I can assure you that I could never have purposefully come up with that expression in a million years by painstakingly detailing it. But by using a technique or approach of just globbing paint in approximately the place where I wanted it to go and letting the paint do what ever it wanted to do, I got lucky, therefore it was a happy accident. I have tried to incorporate this approach into my method as much as possible to my delight almost without exception.

Catching an interesting facial expression is probably the most under--�slash� thing in the world of art. Under used. Under appreciated. Under posed. Under considered. Under understood. And what a shame that is, too. For we all posses a very finely tuned ability to interpret the tiniest nuances in the facial expressions in each others moods and subtexts of thought. Whether we do this on an actual conscious level or as most of us, I suspect, do on a more subliminal level, we all know on some level immediately if we like a person, distrust a person, see a �twinkle� in their eye--we get a reading from the tiny traits present in a person�s face--if they are upset, pleased, interested or repulsed (although, I have never really had occasion to witness that one personally-LOL) It is an area that I definitely want to and plan to explore in future portrait works.

I still have this piece in my possession, because it is “Priceless" to me.

Uploaded

December 8th, 2013