For me expressing the strongest mood and energy moving through a landscape, means I do not paint what I see. I select a few things from the landscape: I am not interested in copying. The linear lines are felt through my body rather than intellectually being able to put into words my direction in painting. The movement is sometimes spontaneously applied with freshness. Not having words for what I am doing in a painting means the journey can and does go a muck at first. Typically the fussy details of what I am seeing are revealed and covered with paint repeatedly until the surface appears to be a rough washboard road as in my landscape painting with "Rhododendrons and Tree".
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At first the rhododendron was in the middle ground and there was a tree to the right.
As I painted I saw the house across the street.
I decided to paint larger rhododendrons in the foreground covering the tree at right. |
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When the painting , "Rhododendron and Tree" became too rough I used some of the same colors on practice watercolor paper. Feeling the return of confidence I made bold strokes over much of the surface. ending up with the painting above.
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almost completed "Rhododendron and Tree"
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4 comments:
Interesting and always fun to watch you paint-- although sometimes I see a stage that I wish you kept when you don't lol
Yes Rain, something is lost in freshness every time some element in the painting is removed. But after doing many paintings, none are so precious as the adventure of acting on the question - what if I changed this or that. Even the fight to get the whole to have a singular unified energy is worth the loss. Keeps me wondering if I am any good at all at painting. So I fight with blindly putting a few strokes of paint where ever and the painting becomes a new challenge. Or as in this case I loosen up with some spontaneous paintings that are not so precious and I can go back to the one that I was over working and paint over all the fuss.
Rain, I am only confessing how I go about painting. This may not be a good way to paint. Definately not good for most painters.
maybe not for everyone but it works for you. I like your paintings and wish more saw them as they really do capture the energy of a 'place.'
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