Painting Harvey Weinstein
I am in the midst of refining the details on my 7-foot tall by 14-foot wide Not #MeToo: No More Casting Couch painting, so I will be able to show a museum-quality work when I bring it to the Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids for Art Prize in September.
Here I am working on Harvey Weinstein’s hand. It is actually the hand of my model, Chris North, who stood in for the body for Weinstein. Thankfully for me, the two have similar physiques. Chris normally does life modeling in my Drawing II classes on St. Petersburg College’s Clearwater campus. I was fortunate that he had a dark suit and a red dress shirt for the photo shoot for this painting, since I wanted to evoke devilish colors for the figure of Weinstein. Chris previously modeled in my When Good People Do Bad Things painting, so I know he is a great sport, even when he is not being shown in the most favorable light in my paintings.
You can explore the details and symbolism (under “see full description & specifications”) of my When Good People Do Bad Things painting, where the model Chris is pulling out his own tooth at the following link: When Good People Do Bad Things on www.kevingrass.art
Here you can see the progress I made on Harvey Weinstein’s hand. I think it’s turning out well.
To let you know how far the piece has come, see how Harvey Weinstein’s hand looked after just the first layer of paint. It seems more like an Impressionist piece at this stage.
I have made good progress on refining the entire figure of Harvey Weinstein. I think of him as the “beast” in relation to the “beauties” that are the ballerinas in this painting. He has a really large head in real life and that underscores my intended message.
A woman asked me online how I can stand to paint Harvey Weinstein, because she thinks of him as such an ogre. It’s actually easy to deal with that: for the most part, I am painting the body of my model Chris, who I consider a friend. And Weinstein’s large head is just another subject that I have to get right. Since he never molested me or anyone I know personally, I don’t have the emotional reaction that one of his victims would have. I am using him because by the time he was accused of sexual harassment, there was a kind of critical mass that spawned the #MeToo movement. While accusations against Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill, and the many accusations against formerly-beloved people like Bill Cosby set the stage for this, it was the Weinstein scandal that seemed to mobilize women across the country to speak up about injustices that they endured.
I have moved on to painting Madeline now. Standing on a ladder to paint for hours is as exhausting as sitting squinched up on the floor. I am looking forward to painting smaller, easel-sized paintings after this one! Once again, Carmichael is stopping by to review my progress. Check back next week for further updates and thank you for reading my blog!
To see my entire portfolio of paintings, please check out www.kevingrass.art! You can purchase original paintings and fine art print reproductions directly from my website.
Blog post 15 of 22
