Women Who Changed The World, Benizar Bhutto

 From the encaustic abstract to the finished portrait. To see the whole process check out my Face Book page https://www.facebook.com/Ezshwans-paintings-132813546782502/timeline/

Process of new paintings

I have been able to spend an hour or 2 in the studio the past few days. It helps me to take my mind off the itching and pain of this disease. I am moving into the 4th week of shingles with little change and I need to have a reason to get dressed every morning.

The sunset painting as under painting still shows

The first couple of layers of oil must be fused into the encaustic to make a permanent bond.

Little time in the studio

I sure will be happy when this shingles episode is over and I feel up to getting back to work. At least all this resting gives me time to study the paintings in my series, Women Who Changed the World. I saw that the painting of Amelia Erhart needed the background changed. That much I could do.

What do you think?

After

Before

Marian Anderson, A Woman Who Changed the World

I finished the painting of Marian Anderson today ( I think) Below is the process of this painting.

Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. The incident placed Anderson into the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. She sang before a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions. Anderson continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955. Her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at the Met was the only time she sang an opera role on stage.

Eleanor Roosevelt, A WomanWho Changed the World

I am happy with what is happening in the studio with this new series. This painting of Eleanor Roosevelt is finally working the way I want it to. These portraits are painted over abstract encaustic paintings that don't please me anymore. I have to fuse at least the first layer of oil into the encasutic to assume a permanent bond. I do wear a heavy mask while fusing, since the fumes can be toxic. I then can scrape though the oil to the encasutic base.
Here is the process:

Finished painting

Hedy Lamarr, A Woman who Changed the World

I finished the first painting of the series of Women Who changed the World. I started with what I thought might be the most challenging, because she is so beautiful. Young, gorgeous women are not as much fun to paint, but I do like challenges.

Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr

Athough better known for her Silver Screen exploits, Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler) also became a pioneer in the field of wireless communications following her emigration to the United States. The international beauty icon, along with co-inventor George Anthiel, developed a "Secret Communications System" to help combat the Nazis in World War II. By manipulating radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception, the invention formed an unbreakable code to prevent classified messages from being intercepted by enemy personnel.

Lamarr and Anthiel received a patent in 1941, but the enormous significance of their invention was not realized until decades later. It was first implemented on naval ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis and subsequently emerged in numerous military applications. But most importantly, the "spread spectrum" technology that Lamarr helped to invent would galvanize the digital communications boom, forming the technical backbone that makes cellular phones, fax machines and other wireless operations possible.

As is the case with many of the famous women inventors, Lamarr received very little recognition of her innovative talent at the time, but recently she has been showered with praise for her groundbreaking invention. In 1997, she and George Anthiel were honored with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Pioneer Award. And later in the same year, Lamarr became the first female recipient of the BULBIE™ Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award, a prestigious lifetime accomplishment prize for inventors that is dubbed "The Oscar™ of Inventing."

Proving she was much more than just another pretty face, Lamarr shattered stereotypes and earned a place among the 20th century's most important women inventors. She truly was a visionary whose technological acumen was far ahead of its time.


When I posted this painting on FaceBook, several people thought it was Ava Gardner. That is understandable, since the publicity shots were retouced by hand, long before photo shop, and the flat makeup and strong black eyebrows, heavy false eyelashes and red lips looked pretty much the same. Ava's eyes were brown and Hedy's were green, but the makeup looked similar.

Ava Gardner

A New Direction, Women Who Changed the World

I had been thinking that I would return to painting abstracts, but no art nothing really touches me like well painted figurative work. I started drawing people when I was a child and faces still are fascinating to me.

I am delighted that I see many, young figurative painters on the Internet.  Their work is exciting and inspirational. These are artists who actually can draw, paint, and SEE. For years, figurative painting has been dismissed by galleries, art schools,  and museums, but there seems to be a renewed interest in large, very loosely painting portraiture.

I would love to be able to loosen up even more than the 50 Faces I recently finished. I seem to be procrastinating about starting because I know the first few paintings are going to be disappointing, until I can get into the magical zone, that sometimes happens.

This series will be, "Women Who Changed the World" I have a list of about 48 women, most of them American. I would love to hear from you with your thoughts and suggestions. These women are not necessarily all Mother Teresa-like. They can be villains in some eyes as well as benefactors. They do not have to have lived in this century.

Below are paintings that are older and some recent ones. This is not what I want to next accomplish. I hope I can stretch my abilities to push into the now world of painting. At my age, I know I don't have 10 or 15 years to keep working. Let's see what I can do.

Not This, oil on canvas 2003

Not This, encasutic on board, 2013

Not This, oil on board, 2015

Not this, oil on board, 2014

Not This either., oil, encaustic, transfers, on board, 2014