Melora Creager

With a little experience under my belt, I wanted to return to some of my early painting failures, to see if I could get my arms around them. This is a monochrome portrait of Melora Creager, leader of my favorite band, Rasputina. I’d link to them, but they basically no longer have a web presence at this point. The reference image is taken from a publicity still.

This turned out pretty good for a single-brush work. It’s sloppy, but that was a conscious choice for this one. Light-colored hair and dreadlocks are clearly at the intersection of two struggles for me. I can’t decide if using the blending tool improves the results or not. Compare to petitoctopus.