Blue Ball Logo
kieferart
FINE ART UP CLOSE

Thin rainbow HR

(Mouseover to see the original version of this painting.)
original version of "Camping Feet"

"Camping Feet"
Oil on canvas, 30" x 22"

$350 (US customers only)  PURCHASE INFO

This is the grandson of my neighbor who showed up in my studio at 9 a.m. fresh from a 3-day camping trip.  His eyes were puffy and he was clearly wiped out.  I showed a little mercy and told him he could just relax and read while I painted.  He didn't look particularly relaxed, though, wearing hard leather shoes, so I asked him to remove the shoes and sox.  I couldn't understand his hesitancy to do that until he hinted that there may be a hygiene issue.  I laughed and assured him it didn't matter so he took them off.  From my perspective (sitting), his feet looked gigantic proportionate to the rest of him, so those feet became my point of interest.  My only regret is that I couldn't get lower (or raise him on a platform) so that I was looking through  his feet to see him read. That would have been fun, but I made the best of what I had.

After I finished the painting, it collected dust for a couple of years.  I couldn't bring myself to varnish it.  It looked too portraity, there was no focus, his head position was weird and I had inadvertantly placed the image too low on the canvas (mouseover the pic to see the original).  It was generally kind of blah.  I knew I had to somehow force focus in the piece.

I finally decided to bite the bullet and darken the background, but the focus on the feet was still not clear.  Why not darken everything but the feet?  As I took the chance of ruining an "okay" painting by changing most of the lit parts of his body to shadow, the focus did actually become clearer as I painted.  Imposing a narrow, brilliant shaft of light coming from the upper left down onto the the lower part of his body gave the piece the focus and interest I was looking for.  It was suddenly about feet.  Whew.


BACK TO THUMBNAILS
HOME INTRODUCTION FINE ART GALLERY PORTRAIT GALLERY COMMISSION INFO & PRICING CARDS/WRITING LESSONS KIEFER

kieferart  © 2014 - 2017 All Rights Reserved.
Website developed by Karen Kiefer.   Inquire within.