The problem for a diversified artist--genre-loving, genre-hungry--is, of course, where do I find the time to actually do everything I want to do? The "Mrs. Norman Project" pushes this quest to an extreme. I want to do a wonderful portrait for the comissioner, but how do I satisfy her desire for the perfect and most evocative painting ever if I can't see the subject? Blowing up the reference photo doesn't help. It's too old, too grainy. Plus, half the work that I imagine that I CAN do is imaginary. I can't see the subject, after all. I'm creating the subject from scratch every single second.
PASTEL JOURNAL gave me an idea for how to proceed. There's an article in there about a pastel artist who decided to do 100 different versions of a landscape to see how reinterpreting the subject matter might alter her work. After reading this article, I immediately decide to adopt the same principle with Mrs. Norman. I'll do one-hundred different paintings of the same subject, reimagining the commissioner's mother in every possible guise, with every possible approach! One-hundred paintings that I'll place in their own portfolio, and Mrs. Norman can choose whichever painting she likes! In the meantime. I'll be pushed to be more prolific than I am naturally, which is damned prolific. I'll be forced to develop as a visual artist because I'll be adopting so many different techniques/styles/approaches in the quest to create the definitive MRS. NORMAN PAINTING.
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