Just learned that the Crepe Myrtles will be on exhibit at the Virginia Art League in March. The painting will be included in the spring landscape exhibit running March 6 through March 31st.
parts and whole
I find it difficult to work on a large still life from the motif because you see all the parts from different angles as you move around. And the whole canvas is too large to see everything all at once. So although I did begin the painting all at once and very spontaneously — as I get into the weeds of it I have to sort out parts one by one.
My first couple attempts to get the notebook on the left in correct perspective on the table went awry — in the painting itself and in a drawing I made as a study. Happily a painted study is getting me closer to where I want to be. I propped it up against the painting in the photo above. I needed to see how this change would look in the actual painting.
After painting out two compotiers that had appeared on the right hand side, I used a study that I had made a couple months ago to form the new right hand side of the painting — and I propped that smaller painting up against the canvas to get an approximate notion how it would look.
So part by part, I’m gonna get there ….
indulgence
I am still working on landscape ideas in the moments between moments. And you can see the edge of the recent pine tree drawing peeking on the lower left hand side of the photo.
But I have been longing to get back to this large bright yellow still life that I began a while back. And now I have resumed work on it.
I flit between pictures sometimes like a bee flits among flowers. Well, since I paint flowers I guess I literally flit among the flowers too ….
pine tree drawing
I’ve pulled a 30 x 40 inch painting of a pine tree out of the rack. I began it a while back but I’m ready to finish it now.
Made this drawing above to sort out some questions I have about the top of the tree. The drawing measures 24 x 18 inches so the image is just a bit smaller than the related section of the painting.
The pine tree is an oil painting so I’ll be switching gears from acrylic to oil. The studio will soon be filled with the wonderful aroma of linseed oil. Soon!
the greening of my studio
I’ve assembled some of the landscapes in the studio to see how they look together and to decide what work remains. As a consequence there’s a definite “greening” to the decor. It’s still wintry enough outside this mid-February to find the green quite comforting — very comforting indeed.
My winter pond painting has a frame now. It’s there on the lower right.
my old haunt
Been busy this week cleaning and organizing my studio — and getting ready for an even bigger cleaning event — the BIG SPRING CLEAN! So not so much painting in the last few days.
However I did go to the National Gallery of Art yesterday for a few hours and while I was there I made this drawing after a Rodin sculpture.
Spent some time looking at still lifes too in anticipation of my switch from landscape to still life which is coming, coming — soon! Every time I am out where cut flowers are for sale I am thinking also about still life. Soon, soon!
Here’s what I was looking at:
gardening indoors
I’ve been working on this picture for the last week. It’s a 30 x 40 inch acrylic painting of the old garden. And it’s almost finished. I seem to be going left to right so the whole vertical right side comes next.
Nonetheless it’s kind of a prototype for this motif because I have another version in mind too.
The first painted sketch I made for it was called “the little garden” so I guess the version above shall be considered “the big garden. Little Garden is here:
https://alethakuschan.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/little-garden/
the do over
Lucy and Zoomie photobomb the picture I’m trying to take of a 30 x 40 inch acrylic canvas I found in storage that I’m going to over-paint with landscape. It’s exactly the same size as the painting that has got me stuck — so I could use it to rehearse a second version.
It’s the wrong size to serve as a proper format for an idea that I have in the hopper. But I’m inclined to use it to rehearse the new idea anyway (rather than deepen my obsession with the troublesome existing painting). Changing formats is like changing media — it can shake things up in interesting ways.
It will be interesting sometime later on to recall that this picture was underneath whatever landscape I decide to paint here.
The options are this:
https://alethakuschan.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/crepe-myrtles-are-the-best/
or a more probably an elaborated version, in a different format, of this:
https://alethakuschan.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/little-garden/
piling on the obsession
Drawing and redrawing the motif to get myself revved up to continue painting — on this:
https://alethakuschan.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/crepe-myrtles-are-the-best/
at the heart of the scribbles
Here’s an even closer detail of the drawing. There’s a sort of riot of lines.
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