Art should give the viewer something to think about, but sometimes art can give you a laugh, too. "The Boy with the Spoon on his Nose" does that for me.
Susie Burch is a fellow Atlanta painter and good friend of mine who painted an hilarious painting of a chicken and chicks running. The title? "Run for your Life!" The motion in that little painting is so real, you can practically see feathers floating into air as the hen and chicks scurry across the canvas. Check it out here: http://www.susieburch.com/assets/gallery_oils/index.html by scrolling down the series of paintings on the left. Makes me smile every time I see it.
I love the expression on the face of the boy with the spoon on his nose. He's clearly delighted with his balancing trick and so is the viewer. It makes you want to pull a spoon out of the drawer and try it for yourself.
The boy was wearing red in the original photo. Somehow, I think the overall impact would have been lessened with a more subdued color. After all, this painting is about spontaneity and youth and happiness. I seem to be using red consistently in my paintings these days. I even put splashes of red in the background to move the viewer's eye around the painting. The people and furniture in the background are pretty loosely painted and I used some cool grays to balance the warmth of the red.
Overall, it's working for me, but you never know....I may come back to it in a few weeks and see fifteen things that need tweaking. I have one particular painting in my home that I've been tweaking off and on for two years. Enough already!
