If you're an artist and have a website with FASO you know about the monthly Boldbrush contest. Everyone has their own take on it; mine is it promotes good front end exposure and if you browse a bit you get to see what other artists are up to. I like to enter in the last few hours so I land on the first page everyone sees visiting the Boldbrush site.....makes sense because there are a lot artists who enter. I have a short attention span as I suppose most others do when it comes to browsing. Well it's that time again.....do I or do I not put on a competitive hat and enter. Like it or not, art is competitive and difficult to avoid becoming consumed by in some form or other. I'm competitive in nature and it's taken me a while to understand it's not the healthiest reason to pick up a paintbrush. In this case it's free with the FASO site and a shame to throw free exposure out the window. Optionally we can also pay for additional entries if we feel especially frisky with ourselves and lady luck......
This painting was born out of a planned power outage the other day....6 hours of cold turkey. That meant no computer, no music, no Starbucks coffee..... So in strange silence broken only by outside noise I never really hear, I pushed paint all day, even after the power returned.
Garden Flowers is the last finished painting of October and probably a good candidate for Boldbrush. It won't win any prizes but I like it well enough as a single session painting.
I've been fooling around off and on with leaf the last few weeks. Last year about this same time I did this little painting towards the end of a collection based on air as the prime painting intent. It was an interesting time because I was all over the place or so it seemed. But history always deems them as a collection of ideas that are either used, set aside or discarded as we move forward. A few weeks ago I got interested in some of those canvases again because of a renewed interest with gold leaf and some Koi I wanted to use this go around.
The Koi were in a lot of tree shadow and just glowed as they hit the light.....oddly so, on a very grey day. This particular painting is also from the same pond and reminded me of the day......so instead of starting a new canvas, I thought it better to use this canvas as a warm up.
This particular painting also had a very cool title, suggestive in nature "Incognito".
This painting was born out of a planned power outage the other day....6 hours of cold turkey. That meant no computer, no music, no Starbucks coffee..... So in strange silence broken only by outside noise I never really hear, I pushed paint all day, even after the power returned.
QUICK BLOCK OUT
Shown on easel with photo reference
996 COMPLETED - study in blues and greys
Garden Flowers 24x24 oil on linen (10-30-15)
I do few still life paintings but with only one session and a loose 24x24 canvas it seemed a good practice choice. The deep French Blue Hydrangea is one of my favorite flowers and always posed a painting challenge for me. The companion flowers long graceful stems compliment the more structured hydrangea. My unknown flower if arranged right has wonderful 3D possibilities which were captured a bit here by pushing deep shadows and pulling out strong highlights.
DETAIL
REWORKING A PAST PAINTING
I've been fooling around off and on with leaf the last few weeks. Last year about this same time I did this little painting towards the end of a collection based on air as the prime painting intent. It was an interesting time because I was all over the place or so it seemed. But history always deems them as a collection of ideas that are either used, set aside or discarded as we move forward. A few weeks ago I got interested in some of those canvases again because of a renewed interest with gold leaf and some Koi I wanted to use this go around.
The Koi were in a lot of tree shadow and just glowed as they hit the light.....oddly so, on a very grey day. This particular painting is also from the same pond and reminded me of the day......so instead of starting a new canvas, I thought it better to use this canvas as a warm up.
This particular painting also had a very cool title, suggestive in nature "Incognito".
STARTING POINT
931 Incognito 62x48 oil on linen (10-13-14)
931-1 REWORK(10-31-15)
931-2 Rework (11-1-15)
931-3 Rework completed (11-2-15)
All done for now! It has a few more days to dry before going back in with my gold leaf details. The painting as it is didn't lead me exactly where I wanted to go but I like it well enough and want to remove the gold if I don't like it. When I start out doing something, especially like this crazy move, messing with a perfectly good painting, I don't always know why. But eventually I stumble through and I see it loud and clear.
All done for now! It has a few more days to dry before going back in with my gold leaf details. The painting as it is didn't lead me exactly where I wanted to go but I like it well enough and want to remove the gold if I don't like it. When I start out doing something, especially like this crazy move, messing with a perfectly good painting, I don't always know why. But eventually I stumble through and I see it loud and clear.
No comments:
Post a Comment