Pin-Up Girls and Patriots
"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness..."-- Audrey Hepburn
I learned something today that I think will improve my process when creating a text portrait. As I noted in a previous post, I usually sketch in the features, cover the entire face with text, then paint in details. The problem with this system is that I sometimes lose my place, so to speak. I discovered that this is because the thickness of the text is the same as having thick lines in a drawing. It is sometimes difficult to tell which side of the line I should refer to, for instance, when starting a shadow or highlight. I often leave myself visual clues, such as reversing the text by turning it upside down where a transition occurs. I have also tried breaking the face up into smaller components. For example, when painting Black Elk, I texted his nose, then painted it, then I texted his cheek, then painted it, and so on. While this worked well, it was challenging to integrate all of the features into a pleasing whole.
Today I started a portrait of Marilyn Monroe, and I started by first painting her mouth. (Note: the reason the canvas is pink is because I painted over another failed attempt to paint Barbie... She is giving me a lot of grief.) Then I added just a few strips of text to see how it looked. So far, I am pleased with this.
I also finished, I think, the portrait of Audrey Hepburn. I worked on it several hours making tiny adjustments to angles, shadows, and highlights.
It was suggested to me by my artist friend, Michael Lenz, that I might want to include Mamie Van Doren in my series. We discussed why she, like a handful of other fabulously beautiful starlets and pin-up girls, never achieved the level of fame that Monroe did. Perhaps exposure in the media was a factor. Perhaps she wasn't as talented or wasn't given the same opportunities. I will have to look into these factors more. I do know that she recently wrote a book about her life in Hollywood. It is titled Playing the Field: Sex, Stardom, Love, and Life in Hollywood, and, in fact, discusses Marilyn Monroe as well as Jayne Mansfield. This, combined with the fact that she unarguably has a compellingly beautiful face, makes her an likely candidate for being included in my project.
This is probably a good time to mention that a subject does not have to be beautiful to be included in the project. Sometimes it is fun to create something just because it is pretty, but it is usually much more interesting to create something complex.
For example, my husband is a big fan of Audie Murphy and has suggested, several times, that I include a portrait of him. Now, I have already painted Murphy as the Youth in Red Badge of Courage, but the suggestion insists that he should be created from To Hell and Back and dressed in his uniform with all of his medals in evidence.
I have not told my husband, David, but this will undoubtedly become one of the faces in the series. Note that in a recent edition of our city's local paper, there was an article about an East Texas man named Onclo Airheart, who fought alongside Murphy and was also highly decorated.
The article lists his many honors, and states that "after the war, Airheart was content to return to a life of farming in the Trinidad area. According to several sources, he was offered a chance to appear with Murphy in the movie To Hell and Back, which depicts the exploits of Murphy and his men. Airheart declined because the movie was to be shot during planting season." Maybe it is a stretch, but I saw some glimmering parallels in the lives of the people discussed in today's blog in that it is interesting how some rise to fame, while others who live similar lives do not.
And maybe it isn't important, because as Marilyn Monroe said: "Fame doesn't fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary."
I learned a lot by studying maps on which contour lines, both curved, and straight, describe the intersection of a real or hypothetical surface. (In this case, the real surface was my face in the self portrait I was painting, and the hypothetical surface was the jutting hip of the girl with the red legs.) The configuration of these contours allows the viewer to infer the relative gradient of the surface at specific places. In other words, the text strips began to create the illusion that the surface had a controlled, undulating movement. I liked the idea that lines allowed the viewer to translate an image from the flat surface to a 3D vision.
Of course, this is what artists do when they draw. This is often referred to as using cross contour lines. According to one artist's blog I came across that discusses how artists use these lines to create form ():
"Cross contour lines are lines that cut across the main axis of the form you are drawing. Effective use of cross contour lines can be a very economical way to show the form of the object you want to draw. They can also be developed into shading, by thickening the lines or by increasing the density. Additionally, thinking about cross contour lines will help you decide the direction of your brushstroke if you are doing a painting."
Here are a couple helpful examples:
I did not work on my text paintings yesterday. Sometimes it is best to just let them be for a while. Today I am ready to get back to work on them.
I will close today with some appropriate words from Anais Nin:
"There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person."