Amnesty International Portraits Show

Well, it is time to get to work.

Two years ago I participated in our local Amnesty International group's Portrait Show, and this month they are hosting another show. I'm in. The show is about detainees at Guantanamo. My person is Adil Abdul Hakim, who is a Chinese Muslim now living in Albania after four years in Guantanamo. It is a long, fascinating story that Human Rights Watches all over the world have been taking care to note. The thing is the Chinese government is also apparently likely to put him in jail, and so he, and some other Muslim Chinese men with China/Guantanamo histories have moved to Albania.

The thing that strikes me is this man's move from homelessness to home - something that resonates a chord in me.

And so:

(For some reason I am painting this time...)

Here goes:

The piece will be 24" x 24". In this photo I had just painted the canvas. This computer isn't showing the color quite correctly... the blues are soft, the whites are warm. I am enjoying them immensely. I added all the colors at once in preparation for the next step.

In this photo I am in the process of pouncing the wet paint with a rolled and twisted pad of paper towel. The colors blends and mixed perfectly. I was delighted.

Here I am painting the repetitive shapes with primer. They will lay on top of the painting in a grid. You'll see that there is a bit of texture and wrinkle to the "house".

This is the ripped tissue paper squares that I am painting into the surface.Can you see it? All this white on white...I set it all out to dry and in my next post I will show you the houses with some color and collage.