Red Dress Process

The Red Dress Process --Lynette Hensley

	A detail of her face. I like how calm she is but not sure about how indistinct she is in character or what I might need her to do or look at when I figure out what the rest of the painting is going to be about.
Her arm is not quite right, but I don't know how to work it out in the drawing, so I had Katherine pose for me. From those pictures, I think I can make her arm work better. It is not so straight, I've discovered. More fluid-- and goes back and forth in space, curving more with the body. I have a flatness here that I want to change.	At this point I kind of like the sketch and am a bit afraid of painting over it and "ruining it". I realize how little I know about painting, and feel like I want to take a class instead of just trying to paint. I feel like a fraud at moments like these when the vision depends on my skill, and my skill level can't meet the vision head on.
These characters lend themselves to a morality play of the early American period. Boy those plays were dull. Maybe I'll put a pulp fiction slant on it. Yet, the picture is about the dress. OK, maybe it's not about the dress. It's just named the red dress. I've gotta be careful about the focus of this painting.	I pinned these papers on to establish color areas. I know the dress has to be red. After all I named it the red dress. OK, I know it doesn't have to be red, but I want it that way...... Now I'm just procrastinating.
Some more characters added to the background. My Artistic aim is to say something about the theater--and how the theater tells us about ourselves. As I make the art based on my artist statement, I find that my thoughts about the statement itself become more specific. They each develop upon the other.	As a costume designer, I got swatches of fabrics or color to create a palette for the other designers and the director to look at and work from. While I miss the interaction and energy of that collaboration, I am also avoiding the headaches of working almost entirely from someone else's vision. I feel both bereft and freed.

I am reading "Art and Fear" by Bayles and Orland. Pg 47 reads, " The lesson here is simply that courting approval, even that of peers, puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the audience. Worse yet, the audience is seldom in the position to grant or withhold approval on the one issue that really counts -- namely whether or not you are making progress in your work."

One goal here is to make progress in my work and let go of any need for approval.

I wonder about my expectations while I work on this. I want it to go easily, but I know there will be problems to solve. The biggest problem I can see is that if I don't make progress I will hate myself. "The depth of your need to make things establishes the level of risk in not making them." (--art and fear.) The next is the fear of ruining this big canvas. To get over that I'm going to work on 3 smaller canvasses that I started at the same time as the red dress. They are portraits of some local musicians who play at open mics where I have played. The plan is to use these canvasses as warm up for the portrait part of the red dress. It's the principal of quantity begets quality.