The Last Empty Wall Space

Available wall space is always a rarity at my house - I tend to live in houses that are longer on charm than space, and I'm a bit of a collector.  So I've had a blank space crying out to me over one of my kitchen windows since we moved last year, but just hadn't been able to commit to anything.  Then a month or so ago I found an old wooden I don't even know what - drawer of some kind?  It's completely crooked in every way though so it's hard to imagine - part of it's mystery I guess!   I'm charmed by misfits and the general size was right so I brought it home and have been eyeing it ever since, trying to decide what to do with it.

I decided over the weekend to stop being so commitment phobic and just DO something with it, so I started playing, in the process pulling out half the contents of my studio. A lot of this can be moved around or taken out, so I didn't completely conquer my commitment issues, but some of it is there to stay, unless I were to do some SERIOUS sanding.

It was a good break from the portrait work I've been  doing, and really fun to get back to one of my great loves, mixed media assemblage.

Homework

I'm trying to be a good student, actually doing some of the homework as assigned in the Kate Thompson online portrait class I'm taking. I'm trying to just relax and let them be learning experiences as I work with different lighting and materials, and not get all invested in the results as my perfectionist self tends to do. 

Partway through the first one I realized that I was supposed to have put a layer of matte medium down before painting, which explained why the Golden Retarder I was using was acting nothing like Kate's was.

As a break from portraits I painted this in my fabric journal to practice with the retarder.

Practicing sketching - she's more worried here than in the photo - I have that effect!

So, this is my first ever self-portrait - in spite of having been assigned many in prior online classes, I never actually did one, definitely not in my comfort zone.  But, trying to be a good student and all I went ahead and tried it, holding a hand mirror while I tried to sketch.  I suppose if you can set aside self judgement and take advantage of having a live model available to draw from it has it's benefits, This isn't quite me, I can't pinpoint exactly where it's off, but it was a good experience.