How I paint....concluding that I am a hopeless romantic! HELP!

I keep ideas in a notebook.

This is a sketch I did from a magazine photo (National Geographic?) last summer. I am "on" a theme of women with a landscape....so I decided that she is Afghani. I found images of landscapes in Afghanistan, and chose this one to print out and add to my idea page.

Took this to painting class, Thursday, along with a blank canvas. I purchased cadmium orange on sale (!) and lightly covered the canvas. Then I took this stencil from Stencil Girl (she designs and sells lazer cut stencils)'

With the stencil, I added deep rose colored lines in the background. Much will be covered as I paint, but I hope to keep some where appropriate! I venture on....block in, using BIG brushes only the head and shoulders. The rose stencil will make a great drape on her shoulders! (Afghani infinity scarf, LOL?), so I allow some of it to show, and fill in the blue just a bit.

At this point, I had checked the Internet for images of Afghani women, only to find that many had been mutilated by Taliban justice, their noses and ears cut off! But they were strong images for sure, my heroine will still have her nose! I wanted to see the colors and textiles they wear. Here is one image I like(above), but she was facing the wrong way for this painting.

Still, how the light hits her face and the skin tones are good information.

I choose indigo violet/blue for her head scarf....and decide that I will try to work from my sketch, but since I feel a little blocked here, it is time to work on the landscape!

Blue violet mountains. Paint quickly with a big brush, leave the orange sky and half roses....good atmosphere feeling for strong war torn emotions....

There is large bag of collage materials available. I decide that this will help me break up the endless desert-like foreground. So I pull out those papers, and fibers which I like....there is even flat cork for a hill....

I realize that the cork "hill" is also shaped like a heliocopter. OK, that is evocative of wartime...... I guess everything down with GOLDEN gel medium.

Thinking more of the colors I am using, I decide I need more reds...WOW! Artistically, it is very fortunate that poppy fields are beautiful. Though opium trade is the dark side!

I study the images of Afghanistan's poppy fields and paint my landscape, even the heliocopter hill is covered I waving poppies. The woman's face is emerging, sunlight hitting her. I'm still blocked and not ready for the struggle of who she is.

I find this photo. Appropriately somber and pensive.

It would take a lot of change....tilt of head, lift of chin....so I try to skip all that re-doing....after all I like to paint quickly and keep it fresh.....in the meantime, I found red rice paper with golden strands imbedded, and made the foreground poppies more dimensional....unable to make her less pretty and more troubled, this is where I leave her now.

Hmmm, just seeing this on the screen, I notice I could make stronger shadows by her nose which could add character to her face. What troubles me is that it is lacking....so much for fast quick paintings! LOL!

Off to work on that now!

I jumped right in with some shadows...and think it made her more "real", living in a dark world....

 

All suggestions will be considered.