Faces 17

When I'm ten years old, my family moves to the Netherlands for two years as part of my dad's job. More than once we drive to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam to pick up family or friends who come to visit. On at least one of those occasions, when a flight is significantly delayed, my folks opt to visit the Rijksmuseum to fill the interim before we return to Schiphol. This might be my first visit to an art museum. 

What a place to begin! I have vivid memories of the paintings of the Dutch masters whose works hang in the galleries there, dark dark backgrounds but with strong light illuminating faces and other details. I remember being drawn in to those paintings to explore them.

Now, all these years later, I am taking an Amanda Evanston art-of-abstract-faces course, and lesson 2 turns attention to what has become known as "Rembrandt lighting." 

Way cool idea, but I study my chaos-layer-plus-blind-contour-drawing-start and think, Rembrandt?, really?

I can't imagine how I will complete this painting.

chaos-layer-plus-blind-contour-drawing-start

But I don't need to imagine its completion. I need to make a mark. So I do. I let it inform my eye, then make another mark, and another, and then—awesome!—I'm totally in flow.

The Friend Who Takes the Bus from NYC
to Surprise Me With a Visit in College
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$70

I'm guessing Rembrandt had to start by making marks of some sort also.