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you cannot paint all the time
When I’m not painting, I’m doing this. Don’t worry it’s not as bad as it looks. Several Austen novels are piled into one book. I’m only reading Pride and Prejudice for now. Thus I’ve made rather better progress than it would seem from the photo.
Austen fits nicely into my world. I think she’d approve of the way the studio looks at present.
in the dark
Nothing is one color. Nothing looks the same all the time. Memory and thought sometimes seem to still things — to solidify them. But the things themselves are always changing.
You can make the light even when you paint to give yourself more painting time. It’s a very practical thing to do: to paint in artificial light. But the painting once it’s finished will be seen in all kinds of light. And it will look different in the morning, and it will look different at night.
What the Sky says about the Road – on exhibit
What the Sky Says about the Road is on exhibit at the Torpedo Factory Gallery through the month of June in historic Old Town Alexandria.
a corner of the studio
Paintings are backed up like automobiles at rush hour, waiting for their turn to be finished. The tall flowers in blue and green are almost complete — almost. The Moth is about half way there. Other paintings are stacked behind Moth. I got my work cut out for me.
My goal is to make my way through that stack. But I also have the Big Painting to do. Somehow it all works out. Bit by bit. I have discovered that incremental change is your friend.
green and the other colors
I asked people among my facebook contacts why artists claim that green is a particularly troublesome color to use. (I have heard even Wolf Kahn say this at one of his lectures I attended.)
The replies I got were quite interesting. I even got some expert response from a psychiatrist who addressed the question in terms of human perception. Nonetheless, I still don’t really understand why people experience green differently from other colors because it’s just not my personal experience.
One color is like another to me. Except violet. Violet — in my humble opinion — is difficult to get exact. Or put another way, there are violets in nature that you cannot reproduce with exactness. The reason for that distinction is that some flowers offer very keen, vivid violet colors. And that color comes as light entering your eyes. When you try to mix colors, any mixture at all invariable dulls a color just a little — it loses intensity. So to get a brilliant violet hue requires that mixtures be avoided. But as everybody knows violet on the color wheel comes from mixing red and blue …. (The difference between theory and practice.)
In actual practice you need a substance that is a violet color. Pure pigment. That’s if you’re looking for exactness. And the only way you can mix that color is sparingly. And the best way to change it is by putting other colors around it, letting the light alter the appearance of the ensemble. (And you know what color is surrounding violet in nature — guess who.)
Well, whatever.
I thought about the interesting color discussion when I was mixing greens for my bouquet. I decided for my part that the problem of green hasn’t got anything to do with mixing greens. It’s just that some observers don’t like certain greens. They just don’t like them. Whereas if you like the various greens in all their wild fullness of greenery form, then the problem is solved. Green has a PR problem. Cue music.
“It’s not that easy being green ….”
someone else’s flowers
Not sure whose drawing this is, but isn’t it grand? I’m painting my flowers today so here’s something aspirational I post to encourage a fine flower mood. Hope you’re enjoying a fine flower mood wherever you are, whatever you do ….
I’m still working on these below,
new bouquet
I have returned from the grocery store, got my flowers, and have begun setting up. I’ve been trying to get the flowers to jump into the vase that I drew. Jump, flowers! It’s hard to mix the real with the strictly two dimensional things.
I’m going to be painting a study for the Big Picture. As I begin I’ll be looking at this somewhat awkward arrangement. But once I get the vase indicated I’ll move the drawing off to the side.
The drawing is sitting on a music stand. That’s because the drawing is the score!
I changed my mind
I found a new Limoges vase online, and I’ve decided to use it instead of the pale white one with roses. I just like this jaunty vase with handles better. So I made a study of it using Neopastels and I’ll be using it to replace the main vase of the picture.
I have also decided to investigate using a second smaller vase to be sitting on the table a little closer in the foreground. More on that development later. I have an actual glass vase that I’ll use with real flowers.
Before I canned the white vase I made a little painted study of it, below right.
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