It looks like not much has changed since the last post. Besides the clouds, I also worked on the leafless trees. The painting still has the clarity of light that I was afraid to lose. I love it, but I’m tired of thinking about whether there is anything else to do. I’m getting it out of the studio… at least for a while.
I looked at the painting in the mirror, as I often do, and it just worked! There were so many details that I wanted to straighten out, but I was afraid to continue because the painting was working as a whole.
I have been working on this rescued painting for a little over a week. It has been a nice process. I haven’t gotten uptight about it and have proceeded freely, with a sense of experimentation and have been pleased with the results. The last thing to tackle was the sky. The blue needed to be unified and even though I liked the play of shapes in the clouds, they felt, and to some extent still feel, contrived. (Anne informed me, as went out, that they look like floating turds.)
Today is a beautiful spring day. It is about the same time of year as when I took the original photo and started the reference painting. The clouds today are like the ones I wanted to paint, so that is auspicious, but when I finished with the blue I had to stop. I looked at the painting in the mirror, as I often do, and it just worked! There were so many details that I wanted to straighten out, but I was afraid to continue because the painting was working as a whole. Any little change could take away from that magic.
I think that I will have to forge ahead and trust that I will be able to keep the “whole” in mind while I adjust the details. Still, I had to at least stop for a little while, take this photo and write about what was going on. Have you had similar painting experiences? Let me know. Also visit again and tell me if you think I was able to finish work on the details without losing the overall light and unity of the painting at this moment.
After finishing “Rooftop Dancers,” I wanted to continue with another large, figurative painting. I had an old canvas that was the size I wanted. It was a piece that had been sitting unfinished in the basement for several years. I was going to take the canvas off the frame and re-stretch it, but I couldn’t quite do it. I had to give to painting another chance.
I started the piece in winter from a photograph and a smaller version of the same scene. I was a bit stuck and was having a hard time with color, so I painted the whole painting with white paint, bringing out the image solely through texture. The plan was to bring in delicate, translusent color glazes, but I have no experience with glazing and it didn’t work out the way I had hoped. I wished that I had left it white, because it was quite nice at that stage.
I decide to go back into it and just paint leaving the underlying texture as I could but not worrying too much about preserving it. I took this photograph after playing around with the sky and a few other areas. I am also including a close-up to show texture.
The smaller version of the scene was published last summer in Shambala Sun Magazine.
I wanted to follow up on the subject of unity and on the techniques and ways of seeing that I learned from my painting teacher, Kaji Aso. I discussed this in an earlier post.
Anne brought home some beautiful tulips and put one of them in the ceramic dragon vase. I had to paint it.
I followed the watercolor technique that I learned from Mr. Aso. I started with light washes of yellow, yellow being the brightest color, the one that most “comes out”. Yellow is followed by rose then red or light green and lastly blue. This order is not set it stone. It is based on the principle of first using colors that radiate out and then grounding them with colors that sink back. I mixed some colors to get the darkest darks, but mixing was never advocated by Mr. Aso, only layering.
I have to admit that I cleaned up the background of the photo with Photoshop. There was some stray yellow from that first layer.