This is stage 3.
Highway 96 swings onto the painting at the left. In keeping with the concept of warm colors in sunlight, the road is in pink tones. It keeps bother me. I'm just not too crazy about it, and the water line of the river on the right is too harsh even tho I was trying for cool color in the shadow.
When I open the door to the studio and approach the painting, my eye stops at that tree on the left in the green grass and shrubs along the road side, and it looks like a triangular pointed blob.
I worked on toning down the road, and it seemed I kept making it worse. So I asked my neighbor and good friend Shirley Fisher, an accomplished artist, to give me her input.
"The road is not right, and the water line needs fixing". So grateful to get good considerate critique. .... Also interesting that these were the parts she spotted also.
So back to the drawing board.
Here I'm in the process of getting rid of the road.
As you can see, we have planted grass on the road bed.
I used the palette knife to put riffles in the water along the shoreline and this also served to soften the edges where the shrubs border the river.
(This was a cloudy day and since I had to use the flash, the picture is a little washed out, but I think you can see the general idea.)
It is at this point I was reminded of Helen Van Wyk the renown oil painter, artist and teacher, who shared mantras referred to by her students as "Helenisms". The appropriate one here is: "A painting is a record of a series of corrections".
Here also is a quote that echoes in my mind when I'm stuggling as I was here. "Painting isn't fun!" she would say, "It's a battle between you and that canvas as you try to turn its flat 2-dimsenionalness into a 3-dimensional being!"
www.helenvanwyk.com/HelenVanWyk
Edgar Degas has a similar quote" “Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.”
After many of those "corrections", I brought "Klamath River at Klamath River California" out into the sunlight (well semi sunlight), and this is how she looked in my front yard sitting on the picnic bench.
In the next blog, you will be treated to the installation.
luv/joB
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1 comment:
Great post. I'm lovin' all the photo's of the progress. You've got to be feeling good about the work. You are so lucky to have a neighbor who can and is willing to give you "honest" in-put. Nothings worse, as an artist who wants honest critique and someone tells you ... "great, looks nice".. and all along you know there is something wrong - it's just that you've worked at it so long you can't see the real painting. Thanks for the photo update. I'm looking forward to the next batch of photo's. You go girl!
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