Sleeping During The Day

"Sleeping During The Day" is one of my favorite titles.  I painted the first "Sleeping During The Day" in graduate school.  I love the concept of incredible relaxation, comfort in a sunny spot! In reality I am a non-napper.  We are faking it in this picture, except for Elmo who is staring right out of the picture plane.  

Right after I painted that painting as part of my thesis, ha!  Thesis cracks me up.  (and sold it to the Swigs), I went on to paint a more autobiographically truthful painting called, "Insomniac".   Maybe this new one should be call, "Wishful Thinking"? 

Ok, I will tell you right up front, I am going to do this painting again.  My intent with this composition, was to make sure that my butt was not in  it.  Duh, I really failed.  However,  I like the red slippers. 

"Sleeping During The Day" 24"x20" oil on canvas.  It maybe finished.

 Gonna do another one, sans butt.  Wish me luck.  Here are the stages "avec butt" has gone through so far.

Sketch in paint.  No painstaking drawing for me.  I know, I could have fixed the butt issue here, but I didn't.   In the olden days I often did a painting up to seven times.  It's no biggy.

Scary hair!  Scary eyes!

Getting there...

This is the second to last version, (last version is posted at top of page)  This is when I had the bright idea to close my eyes.  That made it a less disturbing painting, for sure.  I was playing with crazy shadows on the wall.   

It is finished for now, I think.  However,  I have found with the paintings in this "Family Series" that I can't leave them alone.  I'm tweaking hard.  

For example...

Added more color and stuff to this one.  I can't leave it a lone, agh.