As a painter, I am very discouraged by the brainstorming process, and in turn tend to just start splashing paint on my canvas with only a general idea of what it is I am trying to accomplish. At first skeptical of creating a number of studies, I was surprised by the outcome. Typical words such as emotion, color, texture, expression, etc., scattered the top of my lists of thoughts describing my paintings. So, I naturally began painting arbitrary designs in bright color, and experimenting with different ways I could create texture. I gradually drifted into creating rough facial expressions. It was after stepping back from my work that I realized that perhaps what I am trying to capture is not only a facial expression, but the use of color combinations and visible brush strokes (drips, thick globs of paint) to create a feeling in the viewer. I began to see shapes and figures in the brush marks apart from an obvious sketch of a face. In, a blob of paint that had run down the canvas paper I clearly saw a lonely figure. At this point, I feel the aim of my project will be along the lines of "stylized portrait(s)." I want to clearly depict a face, but want to avoid a classical style straight forward portrait.
