Tuesday with Doug

I’ve been working on this painting for a while now. It’s still being worked on but it’s in a nice place that I feel okay with sharing. In the past, I’ve done a few unsuccessful Vishnu paintings. The story is so enchanting. The short version (since I’m not much of a story-teller) is, at the beginning of time there was nothing to the world besides water and god. Vishnu (a god) was asleep on the eternal water, held a float by a bed of cobras (which I believe were called Naga, but don’t quote me on that one). From Vishnu’s belly button, a lotus grew. From that lotus human-kind was born. In my painting, Vishnu (played by Doug) is signing Tuesday above his head which is my day of Creating (or my day of creation LOL). So far the only discerning feature to identify him as Vishnu is the crown of cobras. I still need some cosmic waters, more cobras and the lotus. Working with gouache is much different from working with oil. It’s a very thick water-color, it dries and runs in ways that oil doesn’t. So it’s taking me some time just to deal with the medium. I’ve also been piecing together another painting from a previous session with Lisa in which I painted her lips many times. She’s modeling next week so I’ll have a chance to work on this one further.I decided to sew the lips onto an unstretched canvas that I painted slightly, then stretch the canvas once the sewing was complete. From this photo, it’s difficult to see the stitching but I spend hours on it, making the stitching on the upper head like eye lashes. The stitching on the mouth lips and the ear lips are supposed to look Frankenstein-ish. I have more lips lying around my studio that I couldn’t find a purpose for yet. Hopefully next Tuesday, Lisa will inspire me to do something with them.