Finally! I am dee-oh-en-ee. I took the painting I thought was sorta done, talked with my teacher, and we decided to add a few more flowers. So, I did, and signed my name on the left. On the right I have my digital signature.
I really enjoyed doing this painting. It is on 12×16 Fredrix canvas pad, primed with gesso, and painted over about a 3-4 week period. It is a pleasant break from monochrome – but that is for another time. Today, let’s enjoy Spring as we go up the hill.
I started this painting a few weeks ago, at the first class at the local adult school with a new teacher. This is from a photo I took some time ago. I was at the bottom of a hill, looking up.
This painting has taken a lot of time – several hours – but the work has been worthwhile. I have been applying the various principles I am slowly garnering from hours at the proverbial grindstone, memorizing techniques, concepts, whatever. For instance, I think this painting actually has a nice sense of depth and perspective – something I have struggled with for a long time. The light on the trees also pleases me, as do other bits and pieces of it.
I have also learned just through doing how to get the heavy body acrylic paint into a more viscous and enjoyable mess to paint with, and that is a big help! It’s a combination of matte medium, water, and the paint itself. I dislike the plasticky quality so often that accompanies acrylic paints, so even thought my colors are bright, I think they moosh together fairly well.
I’ll ask my teacher’s opinion when I see her next week. Meanwhile, here is (to my eye at present) finished work. Below is the photo which is the basis for this painting.
I have no idea what the name of this bush is, but it always fascinates me when I see it on my walks through the botanical garden. I should look for a tag. It’s such a cheery plant, and the long seed pods seem rather impossible given the pom-pom shape of its flowers.
These past 8 weeks or so have been very, very busy. I have been taking an art class online which is very demanding and equally fulfilling. A sewing class, too, which is also demanding and fulfilling. At times I have had to make choices between the two, and the art class won out, as it always does.
I don’t know about you, but for me focusing on one thing for a long period of time becomes overwhelming and I feel trapped. It’s not like I spend an hour or two doing something, but sometimes a whole day just doing one thing. When this happens, it is really hard to get back to a normal perspective of life. That is when everything has to simply stop and a determined moving toward other activities has to be done.
One way I do this is to get out and move. Going for a walk, watching a movie, gardening, cooking, socializing. Getting out of the house, away from the studio or fabric, pulls me out of the singular focus of the moment. Being singularly focused gets a lot done, but the feeling of being trapped is not a good feeling. It is suffocating and in many ways crippling. Anything beyond the focal point becomes unimportant.
Obviously, that doesn’t work too well!
The other day, I decided to take a camera I had loaded up with film out and take a long, long walk. Up hills and down, near creeks and on rather scary heights. I went alone. I took my phone for safety, and I let my husband know where I was. I just needed solitude and movement and being out in a world welcoming spring. And then I played with the post processing, sometimes with color, sometimes with silly extremes, and sometimes just to enhance a pretty place.
The world feels a bit more normal now! And given the current craziness, it is something to be cherished and appreciated. Nature gives us something far beyond our comprehension.
The end! Or is it?
Anyway, as I mentioned yesterday, more blue in the lower front, some other touches, and then let it sit overnight.
This morning I took another look at it, and the only way I can describe what I did was to refine it. I increased contrast in some areas to create harder edges. Other things were designed to lead the eye toward the center of the painting, toward the whitish rock at the top of the water. I also looked for areas that just didn’t look right, somehow too symmetrical or distracting. In the end, little bits here and there made it better to my eye. But – that was during morning coffee when I was trying to wake up!
I have never worked on a painting – a watercolor – for this long a time period. Total time is probably 8-10 hours. Time was spent laying down frisket, colors, letting things dry. Then frisket was rubbed off. Water was sprayed at different times and salt sprinkled. Rubbing alcohol was also sprayed on. I think the last round of frisket took about 30 minutes to rub off, along with salt. The result, though, are transparent layers of color which I could not have accomplished otherwise.
While the perspective seems a bit off – or maybe we are looking down into the water from above? – I like this painting. It’s a new adventure for me in watercolor, and while bright, I don’t think it is overly so. I deliberately did not use any orange!! New ideas are coming to mind for painting in a transparent medium. Mood and impression work here for me – not realism, but suggestion. So, spring thaw, melting ice, new leaves.
In this final version, I cropped it and changed the perspective a bit in Lightroom. Post-processing artwork is much like post-processing a photo, an din the printing industry it is done all the time. You can see the uncropped version in the gallery below.
Arches 16×20 140# CP, acrylic, gouache, watercolor.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 