Friday, July 13, 2007

Big


I like making relatively large paintings and I usually don't make them as large as I want them to be. Judy at the gallery would sometimes tell me "too big!" I don't know, to me, the whole notion of comic art screams big. I made one once that was 72" (183 cm) wide, and all I kept thinking was "gee, this would have more impact if it were bigger." You walk into a room and BOOM, "hey, that's cool!"
Additionally, except of late, I'm not particularly prolific, so I don't like to waste an effort on something that you have to stand two feet away from to look at. It's hard enough keeping the captions fresh and making a bunch of small paintings would probably lead to a lot of rehashing of the of the same old lines. Less is more. Yeah, that's right.
Oh, you might recognize that drawing on this canvas (which is stretched currently to about 48" (122cm) square. I did the smoking girl, but I was never quite perfectly happy with it. I thought it was good, but the expression didn't quite do it for me. I wanted more blasé, so instead of having the eyes looking at the viewer, I made them looking up and to the viewer's right. Bonus points for knowing what that means.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

she's about to tell a lie?

smirky said...

The theory goes, she would be looking up and in the other direction if she were about to lie. Looking up and to the viewer's right usually thought to be a sign of pensiveness. You are remembering something that was rather than trying to construct something new.