“Sisterhood” is a painting from my heart, It is, perhaps, the most difficult painting I’ve ever done. For a while I’ve had it in my mind to create a painting that shows the bond between a variety of women and celebrates inclusiveness. Having made many 12” x 12” paintings of one face, each varying in skin and hair color, the challenge became how to combine them and achieve a flow of color harmony that looks balanced and works overall. What colors can I use for hair and for skin and what colors will work in the background to unify the nine faces and make them pop? How do I create a flow that looks natural, not contrived? I decided on brown, ochre, and peach for the skin tones. After experimentation the black, magenta, and purple worked best for the hair. It was important to stagger the colors. Originally the background was sparkly dark blue but that overwhelmed the faces. I’m happy with green patterning and red and purple flowers that are evocative of landscape or bouquets. The visual image and the message it conveys are what I wanted to achieve.
4 thoughts on “The Most Difficult Painting I’ve Done”
this is an outstanding painting, and conveys every thing you write in the blog.
and you wrote an excellent description of your creative process and intentions, both technical (technique) and spiritual
Thank you, Joe. And thank you for being a witness to my creative process
I will forever call this one “Carla’s Greatest Hits” because of the many styles of women you paint being represented here (and many more). This is one of my favorites of yours and it truly beautiful!
That’s so perfect, I love it! Thank you.