I’ve been saving up my heads, maybe subconsciously in order to use some cute/puny title such as the title above.  Good heads, bad heads.  The  bad heads are, it should go without saying, on me, not the model.  My progress on head-making is not as fast as I feel it should be, so I am more often than not disappointed in my output.  On the other hand, when a head turns out good, I’m taken by surprise. You could say my life is a constant trip from disappointment to surprised delight, and back again.   Its’s a trip with no Arrival.  What I ought to do is just shut up about it.  So I will.  I present these heads in no particular order, sans judgement.  Maybe you will like one or two of them.

Serious Rebecca

I wasted a bit of time trying to convey the way her earring looked both metallic and dull.  Sigh!  What’s with me and the accessories?

Serious Margaret

My art buddy Tony would call this “trois couleurs” because he likes to throw around his French.  It started life as black and white on toned paper, but after I added white for the highlights, I thought she looked too pallid–hence the pink.  For the pink I used a piece of pastel.  My drawing box contains various types of charcoal and charcoal pencils, white pencils and white “charcoal” (who do they think they are kidding?), and stubs of pastel-like sticks in several shades of pink and one blue.  Don’t ask me why.  It just happens.

This is Margaret again.  I tried to tease a little “Mona Lisa” smile out of her, so this one is captioned “Not so serious Margaret”.  Many models have a hard time keeping their eyes open.  That doesn’t matter so much when you are concentrating on painting or drawing a figure, but it becomes mighty exasperating if you are doing a portrait.

Oh, the Hair

You are supposed to hear the title of this drawing with the same inflection as the newsman lamenting the Hindenburg disaster.  (Oh, the humanity!)  Not implying the hair is a disaster.  Au contraire (Tony, I like to do the French thing too), the hair is wonderful but daunting.  of course, in 20 minutes I could only suggest the presence of masses of hair and perhaps that is just as well.

Daydreamer

Ok, this is cheating a little.  But there is more head there than body.

Here is another example of the three colors, and another, real cheat–this is a zoom in on the head to make it fit within the topic.  Here is the whole drawing:

Can you tell that she is pregnant?

This is an example of going against the measurements.  Her chin and jaw as observed came across as too manly.  I think it was an effect of the angle.  I shaved it back to make her look more like herself.

While these heads are not all pleasing me, at least I have learned to get matching eyes.  Mostly.  Eyes are difficult because there are two of them.  Both should be about the same distance from the nose and on the same horizontal level.  Both should be the same shape.  But usually you are observing them from a 3/4 perspective. One eye is farther away and on the other side of the nose.  Its size,  shape and position is greatly affected that that.  Cookie cutter eyes don’t work.  Picasso was on to something when he painted eyes from two entirely different perspectives.

Picasso’s “Woman Seated in a Chair” is in the collection of the Currier Museum of Art, here in Manchester.  Since becoming a docent there, I have come to appreciate this piece more than before.

I am currently exhibiting:

at the Hatfield Gallery and the East Colony Fine Art Gallery in Manchester (both are in Langer Place, 55 S. Commercial St., Manchester, NH);  at the Gallery at 100 Market Street in Portsmouth;  at the Bartlett Inn in Bartlett; at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway; at the law offices of Mesmer and Deleault at 41 Brook St in Manchester; at the Manchester office of Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter; at the McGowan Gallery in Concord–the all-too-short exhibit of “Love, Lust and Desire” in which both sizes and prices are severely limited; and at her studio by appointment (email: alotter@mac.com).

You may also view paintings with prices and order prints at my Fine Art America page.  If the painting you are interested in is not there, or if you prefer to bypass that experience, you may contact me using this feedback form.