To fix or not mostly refers to my posting schedule, and only a little to my current paintings. As you might have figured out, I got my posting schedule a little messed up. I was trying to get back on track except that just wasn’t happening. So I decided to just wing it and start again since I basically missed last week. I really don’t want to write excuses for that and you don’t want to read excuses and navel gazing for the why of that so I’m just going to jump in with what I’ve been working on. And some of my thoughts on that. Because I think it’s more interesting.
The current flower painting. I got to a point that I think it could be finished and have been letting it sit while I decide if it’s complete or if I still want to do work on it. I’m honestly torn. Part of me wants to call it done and part of me thinks I should do a little work on the flower. The purple is really dark and I have thought about trying to brighten it up by pulling out some of the purple and leaving behind something of a magenta like color for glow. Then again, I like the intensity and power of the purple.
There is one other thing I am considering in the decision to adjust or not. And it is a factor in the other painting I’m working on. That has to do with the way I’m going to protect it when I finish it. I’ve started using a wax to seal the paint so it’s not as susceptible to water damage. I like it. But what I’ve noticed, particularly with blues, is that it does lift some of the color as I’m sealing it, I see the color on my rag, and I lose some intensity. Because of that, and not knowing how it’s going to do with the purple, or the asphalt for that matter, I’m considering leaving the flower dark and rich in color just in case.
The other painting I’m working on is a Taekwondo painting. And I think I let it sit too long between sketch and paint. I lost a bit of reference and feel for it, even though I had the photo reference. I still lost the thread a bit. Probably because I did the flower and it’s such a different vibe. Anyway. There were a few areas that I wasn’t quite sure about my reference lines. This was partly because when I did the drawing I zoomed in on my reference photo quite a bit to see them and since for the color I wasn’t doing that it made it a bit more of a puzzle as to what I meant. And also because, even where I know what I meant, it had been long enough that I had to decide if that was a dark or light shape I wanted there.
I’ve also been a little concerned the last day or so that I was completely messing it up. I have been worried I was getting too heavy handed for what I am painting. It was especially worrying when I was looking at it wet. As I was working on it and the paper was so wet it was buckling where I was working, the combination of water, paint, warp, and shadow made it look really messy and dark. With the previous taekwondo painting my whites and shadows are a bit more very white with not quite as deep shadows as compared to this one. Then again, when I used the wax to seal the previous painting, in the places where I had tried to make my shadows more intense, I lost some of that depth. And since I know I don’t want to lose that with this painting, I’m making some things darker. Also, there is a lot of white on white paper and I’m trying to differentiate enough that you can see the form so I’ve decided to sort of tint the areas that are whiter or lighter to help them stand out against the paper.
I’ve got another painting sketch done. It doesn’t have quite the same type of reference lines so hopefully I won’t get lost when I get ready to add paint. Which may happen soon. I am really making good progress on the taekwondo one and the flower is so close to being called done that I could be starting paint on this new one in days. It’s more along the lines of the painting I did of the man with the bucket. It’s from an ‘old’ photo though not near as old as the photo I referenced for the man with the bucket. That one is 60 years old, this one might be 20. Still, it’s cute and I think it will be a fun one.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. We do have a holiday weekend coming up and after I spend Saturday patching servers and doing some other maintenance for the day job, I’m planning on painting and drawing and painting and drawing for the rest of the weekend. If you need me I’ll be in the studio.
Cheers!