Greens Against the Sky – 2

I was not especially pleased with yesterday’s painting. After leaving it alone, looking at it again, it seemed to have all the same values for the most part. Today I decided to look at shapes and values a bit more in depth.

One thing I did was to change the elements of the picture a bit. I cropped off a lot of the left side and then made a composition out of that. Left side, middle value sky against light land and dark trees. Right side, darker land against lighter sky. In the middle, land and sky of similar value, mainly middle.

Obviously, the right becomes darker, and what I attempted to do was to create a shape of dark values with connections throughout the painting, connecting with right side to bottom and then to the left. Darks were connected throughout with the stone walls and into the trees. The dark trees in the upper left shift into a darker middle value with the sky.

I also tried to work with shapes – dark shapes with the middle ground tree being the focal point. The lighter shape is the land and the slope down the hill from the same tree. I have been reading a bit about how to work values to create focus – such as light and middle values as focal points surrounded by dark. The same can be light and dark to focus, and then surround that by middle values. Maybe that is what I was doing with the tree and shadow on the hilltop.

Anyway, my head is spinning. I know what I was trying to accomplish – shapes, values, warm and cool colors. Words are not easy to find to describe, so I will leave you for now with my mental and painterly chaos!

Greens Against the Sky – 1

Over the past two or three weeks – really, since the last posting – I have not had time to lift up a paint brush or pencil. It makes for a good break up to a point but when I look back, some of the stuff keeping away from watercolor and paint have been the less attractive necessities of life! Today I have finally settled a bit, enough to take the time out of the day to see if I could even focus on paint without creating mud.

Apparently I can!

Whenever I have not painted for a bit, I like to dive into something which is comfortable – landscapes – and makes me happy – brilliant greens against an intense sky. The American Southwest can provide it, as can spring in California, but today I went to Pixabay to look at pictures of Great Britain. I love their landscapes, especially the Dales and the South Downs, and anything along the coast. Here, living in dry California, such lushness always appeals to me.

This is certainly not my best work, but it is not my worst. The usual lack of depth dogs me except perhaps for the hilltop in the upper left below the sky. I do like the simplicity of my colors, though; it is too easy to do detail after detail after detail.

Anyway, I spent a few hours somewhere in England, and it feels pretty good.

Lost

Coming from a family where family history is lost or suppressed or deliberately forgotten, I always have a bit of nostalgia for old things and memories and stories. Life in the future seems forbidding and apocalyptic, especially these days, so looking backward to areas of familiarity feels good and safe. Good because there are good memories, and safe because I know what was what (as best one ever can), and even though there were areas of ambiguity or fear or confusion, familiarity can help. Getting older has the same effect – familiarity. Falling in love as a teen is not the same as falling in love at 40!

Anyway, I put the black and white capabilities of a digital camera to work. The original photo was quite gritty and really not interesting as far as I was concerned, but then I putzed a bit and thought that a sepia print – faded black and white – and a deckled border could do the trick.

Artistic impulse satisfied!

Nostalgia satisfied!

Good memories of esposo and pooches add to the mix, and here you are.