Mme Z
About a month ago I started work on a painting of a woman I’ll call Mme Z. I know her first name but because I don’t have her contact info she has no idea I’m painting her, and thus I can’t, in good conscience, say who she is. Only that she’s a woman I’ve seen in my dance practice the past few years and that her looks -- dark cluster of tangled, curly hair, snow white skin and graceful, almost queenly way of movement -- fascinated me. So I took a couple of pics of her on my iphone, none terribly good. The only possibility was this one --
Photo of Mme Z
-- which, while it didn’t give me a lot of information, was very “in your face” and frankly sensuous. I liked that. The positioning of the head and body interested me and so I decided to have a go at it, all the while thinking, This is a bad idea; I’ll work like a dog and never get it right.
Well, I have worked like a dog, hours and hours in the studio without much progress, which is unusual for me (I normally work fast and see forms develop quickly). Here’s my first stab at Mme Z:
First stab at Mme Z
Terrible, right? Especially the open, drawn-on mouth (I always tell sitters to gently close their mouths to avoid looking like a cartoon.) But I was determined. The worse the canvas looked on the easel, the more obsessed I became with turning it around, making it beautiful. I don’t know why I hung on so long -- perhaps because I’d been painting politicians for the past four years and was thrilled at the idea of producing a soft, almost poster-like painting of a beguiling, sexy woman. I felt like I was going a little crazy, but put it down to Covid and the fact that I’d been locked up in my house for close to a year. And so I’d work on Mme Z’s mouth or cheekbone or throat or eye sockets and almost immediately -- if not that day, the next -- wipe them out. To keep from feeling awful I’d sit down at my desk and produce a drawing like this one of my husband, George --
Drawing of my husband, George
But that didn’t stop the sense, familiar at times to most creatives, that I was worthless as an artist. And probably for just that reason I’d go back to the studio and the portrait of Mme Z. Here’s the latest image:
Mme Z in her current state
I’ll keep you updated. Poor Z’s hair is a mess -- too dark, too bulky, too unhair-like. More on that next time.
