Rosa

This is another painting I made of Rosa. It was done in a single session and I believe I painted over an old canvas. I am always happy with the rough brush work that results from doing that and, because there is already color on the canvas, the painting goes so much faster.
The windows of our studio looked like those of a factory, hence the title.

Models

Rosa used to be one of my favorite models. I remember clearly when she came to my group for the first time, shy and worried that she would have to model in the nude. She had recently immigrated to the US from the Middle East and was still steeped in the traditions of her country. As it turned out, after she modeled for us countless times fully clothed, one day she decided that there was nothing wrong with modeling nude.
Every model has a unique way of projecting her - or his - personality to the artist. Some gorgeous looking models turn out to be absolutely boring, other, less perfect figures surprise with a lot of spunk and personality. In Rosa´s case, I was always most interested in her face.

Movement

There are various ways of expressing movement which go beyond the photographically correct depiction of a scene.
Paintings and drawings are by nature still objects, so, if action is depicted, the artist has to convince the viewer that movement is actually happening.
The great master Auguste Rodin once defined movement as the "transition from one attitude to another". He advocated what he called "progressive development of movement" , meaning that he liked to depict successive phases of an action in the same sculpture, condensing the action of several moments into a single figure.
For me, distortion is a good way of expressing movement.
In my example of the horse jumping over the hurdle, the head of the horse has already cleared the obstacle, moving away from us, the hind legs, however, are just about to move into our field of vision and their muscles are in the moment of greatest activity. I made the exaggeration in size intuitively but I like the result, as it helps to create the illusion of movement.

Clouds

The rainy season is about to start in central Mexico. For about five months straight, there will be a downpour every afternoon. Some days it may rain lightly all day long, but most of the time there is sunshine in the mornings and precipitation starts around 4 or 5PM.
The landscape turns green within days after the first rains and the moisture in the air creates beautiful atmospheric layers.
This is a great season for plein air painting, especially if you like to do clouds. The light can get very interesting in those last moments before the clouds burst and since oil does not mix with water, I don´t worry if the rain catches up with me.
As long as the car is near!