the painting today

Not really this blue, but I cannot ever get the color correct.  Mentally average all the various photos in your mind and maybe that will be somewhat like the actual canvas …

Anyway, I am taking pictures of the painting at various junctures just to remind myself how it has proceeded.  I am SO GLAD that I have been keeping a chronicle of this painting (bloggers, cherish your blogs)  because it helps me put many things into perspective: so for instance, it’s nice knowing that I began work sometime in May.  This being the last day of July — and of course I took a break from the canvas while sorting out various ideas through drawings — I’d say that’s not bad for time management.  I give myself a “gold star”!

Bonnard’s painting has a lattice design along the two far edges and I have indicated something like that on this canvas.  I’m not really sure how this will go because his painting includes various things omitted from mine — most notably a spectral Marthe.  Thus if I have a lattice pattern, it will be even less clear what it references than in Bonnard’s original.  Perhaps it’s a design in wall paper?  Anyway, I LOVE lattice patterns and have used them often in my art.  I probably get the enthusiasm for lattices from Bonnard’s art (where they are everywhere — even in the foliage).  So, I’m all for including it, but I have to figure out the how and why of it a bit more.

He also has patterns in the very topmost part of those edge sections, and I haven’t quite figured out what I’ll do yet.  Even something like the stripes in the cloth is not straight forward.  Oh, how I wish I could see his actual painting again!  (It’s been 20 years.)  Color changes all along the path of each stripe are possible things to fiddle around with so revisiting even just that one feature will be exciting.  And changes to one element affect the everything else.

Frog teapot and the blue jay figurine need to be made really present.  Ditto for the other objects.  Lots of painting ahead.  The whole scene visible through the window is as yet undetermined.  But oh how I enjoy this….