A Few Faces

 

Recently I practiced painting faces again, most of them in a class setting. This first one, "Moon Goddess" is actually not that recent but from September of last year. It was part of the Taster Lessons for Art Soul Gathering; this was a class by Sue Young. I didn't know Sue before, but liked her style of teaching and had actually almost finished this painting by the end of the class. I only had to add the background a bit later.

A couple weeks ago Karen Abend invited to one of her Sketchbook Get-Togethers that happen live on Zoom. I knew that I couldn't be there for the actual class, but when you sign up you get the link for the replay. It was a "watercolor portrait play" with artist Claudia Kazachinsky.

Before the class we got a warm-up lesson during which we learned about shadows and created a face just by painting shadows.

This was very interesting, even though I don't like my painting very much.

The "real" lesson was much more complex and I was glad that I had the link for the replay, because I definitely needed much more time than just the two-hour class. While I'm not super content with my painting I learned a lot in this class. I definitely need to better manage the amount of water. I also chickened out in drawing my own face, but used the reference image that I copied onto the paper. Claudia explained very well and never became tired answering questions from the students in the live class. 

The class inspired me to practice faces more. It's definitely something I do not feel comfortable with. I practiced on scrap paper, mainly using shadows. But this time I drew the face as well - as you can clearly see, no one has a face like that! She looks like a bad tempered horse. This was done with graphite and charcoal.

Of course these faces are for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

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I have to say here that I am incredibly grateful for Senator Cory Booker and his amazing marathon speech in the Senate last Monday evening to Tuesday evening. Other than a certain senator from Texas who in 2013 used his filibuster speech to read from children's books (Dr. Seuss anyone?), Senator Booker's speech was substantial for the entire 25 hours. I first became aware of Senator Booker in 2016 during the presidential campaign, I liked his reasonableness and have appreciated him ever since. He stands up for democracy, for this country and for the American people. He is one of the few decent politicians we have. I hope we can keep him - he is up for re-election in 2026. New Jersey, stand up for him!

The Faces of Washington

Don't worry, this is NOT a rant about the government shutdown!

It's time for my contribution to Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge, and this week's theme is "faces". Since I haven't painted faces for a very long time, I can't show you anything here. So I had to think of a different approach to this challenge - and I came up with this.

Abraham Lincoln is probably one of the most famous faces in Washington, one of the most visited (not at the moment, though - but we didn't want to go there, right?). But there are also other faces on display - faces full of pain, sorrow, terror and heroism.

Like the men fighting in the Korean War.

The men of Iwo Jima

Not even faces anymore - just names, ten thousands of names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The guards who honor the fallen soldiers who don't have faces and no names either - the unknown soldier.

And the woman who helped finding missing soldiers, giving a face to a name.

After all this gloom, there are also other faces. Faces of hope, but where the gloom is still visible. This dad who with his two sons makes music on buckets in the streets of Washington. Despite the rain they attracted big crowds with their rhythms that were so different from their environment at the National Mall.