If you have a question for me, please leave it in a comment or send me an email and I will make every attempt to answer it in the FAQs as soon as I can. Thanks so much for your interest in my art!--Brenda
Q: Where do you get your names?
Q: Where do you get your names?
A: I keep a notebook of funny words and phrases, overheard snippets of conversations and crazy ideas for names. After I finish a painting I pull the notebook out, make a cup of tea and pray that the inspiration gods will sprinkle some fairy dust on me. Sometimes a name will pop into my head while I’m painting. But that’s a rare and marvelous occurrence.
Q: I want to know about your colour choices and palette! So vibrant and clashy yet simultaneously so subtle and harmonious. How do you achieve this? Limited complementary palette?
A: My color choices are mostly instinctual. I almost always start with complementary colors—I love the tension that occurs with colors that are opposites on the color wheel. I don’t over-think my choices except to push myself to try new combinations once in a while. One technique I use to pull together a composition and create harmony is, in the final stages of a painting, I will try to repeat colors (especially background colors) throughout the composition.
Q: I wish you would comment on how you develop a style. Obviously your paintings are unique, but for the rest of us who are trying hard, how do you do it?
A: Wow! This is the million-dollar question for most artists! I came to my current style by looking, practicing, looking more and then just showing up to do the work. Almost every day. My work used to be very realistic (yes, I can draw a portrait that actually looks like a real human being—hard to believe, huh?) but I wasn’t very excited about the work. So I started looking at art that did interest me analyzing what made my heart skip a beat. I even started a book of images of other artists’ work that I admired. I still keep an “Inspiration Book” that I peruse in times of inspirational black holes.
Over time it became obvious to me what types of images “flipped my switch” and also what I felt was missing in my own work: whimsy, color, symbolism, narrative content, etc. I started incorporating these elements into my work. And it didn’t happen over night. Painting a small painting nearly every day has allowed me to work through the phases of developing “my style” much faster than if I was working on only larger pieces.
Q: How do you decide to break up a face into your abstract style?
A: Well, this comes from working realistically for years. I have a pretty good grasp of the “architecture” of the human head. So all I do is re-arrange what is already there but it helps that I have a lot of training in life drawing and painting. You’ve got to know the rules in order to break them!
Q: Do you see real faces and work from those or are all these out of your head?
A: Except for commissioned paintings, all these faces are in my head (pretty scary, huh?). Sometimes the narrative or the story in the painting is something funny that I’ve witnessed—real life is usually stranger than fiction!
Q: Have you ever had a painting that you refuse to sell because it’s too close to your heart? What makes a painting your favorite?
Brain Vapors (one of my all time favorites)
A: I have a few paintings that I won’t sell—mostly because someone in my family has said they love a certain piece. I think a painting becomes one of my favorites because of the experience of making the painting. Often it’s a breakthrough piece or a painting that “paints itself”—I was just the hand that held the brush (insert Twilight Zone theme song here).
Q: Do you keep a sketchbook?
A: I couldn’t live without my Moleskins! That and a mechanical pencil with an HB lead and a soft eraser. I do oodles of little thumbnail sketches every week so when it’s painting time I always have plenty of material to work with. Sometimes when I am planning for a show that has a theme I will dedicate a sketchbook to that show so I can see how the ideas for the paintings work together. My advice: never leave home without your sketchbook!
