Red Region Inferno

The very first time with someone has so many special moments.
It doesn’t matter if I have known the girl ten minutes or a year… if I have never had sex with her she has special magic to offer up for that very first time.

One of those special moments is when she takes off her panties.
The first time she takes off the panties is special because it is like finding the golden ticket to her magic candy land.
A woman doesn’t take them off unless she is ready.
Or at least it has been my experience that when the panties come down it is the go ahead.
The gonna happen signal.
“Read or not, here we go!”

So I love it.
It is a beautiful thing.

So… another tiny painting.
I’ve done a lot of these now. Most suck and piss me off.
The 8″x10″ thing ain’t working. Out of stubbornness I must continue to paint these tiny things, but I shall confess… I moved up to 9″x12″ sized canvases.
The one above is 8″x10″, but for my sanity I moved up just a tad. 9″x12″ is still freaky small for me and causes me brain cramps, but not as bad as the 8″x10″.
My wife is still not happy though. She says “Honey, you just can’t paint small.” and then she says “Your small painting just don’t look that good.”
Yup, stuff like that.
I agree, but I’m stubborn.
EXAMPLE:
Above painting looks good at a glance (maybe) then you notice that the left side of the figures upper arm/shoulder area  is kinda bulging.
I scraped that off and made it perfectly proportional… but then the balance of the overall image seemed off. My composition was F’d extreme from just that little bit of fixing.
The overall balance is much more important to me than my subject matter so I put the bulging area back in.
I thought about twisting the torso a tad… but “It’s an 8″x10″ painting!”
How much time can be spent on something like this?
I’m giving myself a 3 hour max now from sketching to completion, including alterations.
I’ve realized that without time constraints I could waste away a whole day doing something that should just be left alone. I am flawed, paintings are flawed, life is flawed, and life is art.

Along with my new found quest to conquer the world of erotic art and mess around on tiny canvases comes some general studies.
Figurative ones mostly because I will be mostly doing figurative work for this project.
Composition and paint handling are my main priorities with these studies.
My usual painting methods don’t apply well in such a small area so i have been experimenting and playing around.
This was the fourth figure study on an 8″ x 10″ canvas.

The oddity here is for my eyes only I think.
My finished product looks to me as if someone else has created it.
I did not notice this until a week or so had past when I pulled it out to apply some varnish.
Varnishing a little painting that I new I had created yet looked like it was the work of another was queer indeed.
I hope this project gives me many more such experiences.

Another tiny painting of an erotic nature.
Just ten inches across and eight inches in height, done on cotton canvas.
I have been managing to find time for at least one of these little erotic paintings each week, but have also had to step up the size and do some a bit bigger.
These tiny things are really constraining.
I paint twice as fast at a larger scale. My wife is really hating the finished products too. She says my stuff looks unnatural at a small size and though I don’t exactly agree with her… I do know that I can’t find my natural flow when working tiny. The public rules though when you are a working artist and I shall find out I suppose if my working tiny has merit when the series is done.

I ended up calling it starry kiss as a descriptive title when I needed to save file, but when painting it I was thinking something between the stars of the sky and the magic of passions. The stars are as much creation of the kiss as they are a setting for the moment. Imagined, but real I suppose.
“Starry Kiss” is not an official title for this. I think I shall maybe not title these (or very few) small erotic paintings at all and leave it up to the collectors who end up buying them to title them.
Sex, love, lust, etc… is very personal. It is viewed differently by all and art is participatory in my mind much the way sex is. Letting the original owner title each work as they see it seems fitting for such a subject.
Still not sure on how I am going to handle that.
Still not sure how many I shall do for that matter.
We shall see.

For those not fallowing along:
My first post of the year (see it here) was called “New Year Art Endeavors” and explains that I usually never work on small canvases and that I have decided to tackle art of an erotic nature as my years goal.
Once I have conquered working on tiny canvases I will no doubt jump back up to canvas sizes at three to four times this scale at least for my art erotic.

Since my biggest goal this year is to push the erotic with my art I thought I should have my first post of 2012 be some art of an erotic nature.
I have also been screwing around with tiny canvases. I am doing it out of stubbornness to tell the truth. I am really not suited to such tiny painting surfaces. I will not stop until I feel comfort though.
Once comfort has been achieved I will most likely move back back up and avoid anything under 24 inches in any direction again for some time.
Heck… I may even take some mural commissions to un-cramp my brain from doing these tiny canvases.

Anyways, without further ado…

Just for the fun of it I shall say that in the case of this particular little painting the model ‘of my minds eye’ was my lovely wife, and my vision is one I am very fond of.
I love it when she rides me from this direction as I am very much an “ass guy” and she has some great moves.
Though I have not seen her red/pink nighty in a long time my imagination created it because I have very fond memories involving it.

I have been a painter for my entire life.
My work has mostly been in oils through the 80′s and 90′s until I switched to acrylics in the late 90′s.
A brush and canvas are my tools.

Watercolors have never gotten along with me though.
They just don’t do what I want. Classes, friends who only work in the medium, books, etc… have done me no good.
I learned all the tricks. I hate tricks though. Watercolor doesn’t allow for freedom of expression like oils and acrylics do.

Erotic art is the toughest market in art I think. The collectors are limited.
Not everyone feels comfortable displaying such things on their walls, no matter how much they may personally love it.
I’ve done figurative work since I was a small child, but I have never done erotic paintings.
I don’t know the market or the people in the erotic art world. For some reason though I decided to start meddling around with it though.
Since I don’t know the scene, and have no expectations to live up to in the world of erotic art I decided to do a watercolor for my first experimentation.

Here it is.

Watercolor on paper and it is just ten inches wide.
Working small with paint is also not my thing. A twenty four inch canvas is about my average/small, and I am usually working at double that.

Yes, I have stepped outside of my painting comfort zones.
Watercolor, erotic subject matter, and keeping it small.
I am not sure what to think of the outcome.
For a first endeavor it is o.k. I guess.
Shall I do more?
I’m not sure.
Maybe a few acrylic works are needed in this small size before again attempting the use of watercolors.
Maybe some larger (and looser) watercolors are needed before attempting another small work in this restrictive medium.
We shall see.

As for the erotic art market I will look into that as well.
Unlike many who play with paints… I can not afford the luxury of painting JUST for fun.
I am simply to flaky to hold down a real job.
My source of income is art. I have a family to support.
Art that I cannot sell is not an option for me and I refuse to paint lame ass landscapes just to make ends meat.
So… I am excited to delve into something new, but also anxious at the prospect of failure.

Maybe fate will deal me some good cards on this one.