We were doing a little home painting today, I don’t have the nerve yet to move The Fellas past the washable tempera paints, and we had a little emotion around “it just doesn’t look right” and “there’s not way to make paintings look right”.
“Hold on,” I comforted. I generally don’t know the medium of an artist, and mostly assume it’s oils, but I remember looking at some random-in-the-hallway painting in the 90s that said “tempera” and thinking about the very different artistry required for that kind painting. I couldn’t totally remember the painting, but the Google was able to translate “Christina tempera” into Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World”.
We projected it up on the wall and looked at the strokes and variance of color (we have just introduced palettes and mixing to our style, not limiting ourselves to the dozen colors we have in the bottles). The Younger looked at the painting and was moved to say “it is almost lunch time?” Okay, he’s six. The Elder wasn’t that interested in the stroke or color discussion, but said “the painting makes me feel sad.” Gold. We talked about what story we might have for the girl or “three things that combine to make you feel sad” and “what would you change to make it happy?” and “why do you think people paint sad paintings?”.
It was a good day.
I don’t know why I have a permanent blank on Wyeth’s name. Maybe this will solve it. From that era, Pollock dominates my mind space.