Stop before you make mud and ruin it.
At first I thought this was done. Then I wanted to shorten the tree to make room for the tree to reach for sky making more impact. So I kept working. Once I made one change I saw more to be done. I may never recover the spontaneous flowing movement. But I continued because I wanted the low relief of the thicker paint to read. as a tree. The sweeping branch was not a path to the far distance but a branch I wanted to sweep towards the viewer. The branch needed to be thicker than the sky behind it. I felt the movement was too tumultuous. It needed the stability of a horizon line.
I have achieved a horizon line. The impasto texture reads better. The curling branch has as much impasto as the sky behind it. So I signed it but I felt the signature is premature.
The wisdom here, contrary to the don't overwork a painting myth, is to bravely continue to develop your notions. The last linear mark was fresh, straight from a yellow ochre tube swirled onto the right corner to balance the sweeping lower branch on the left side. In this case the last gestural line is not a decoration added to the tree but an essential part of the mood and life movement focused on my feel for a struggling tree with limbs stretching to the sky.
6 comments:
This morning my final development of the struggling tree does not come up to the original. I could start a new one and try to make my favorite one. Not a good idea. Better to think how a swooping branch would work on top of a less textured sky than the branch.
I don't think anyone should tell a writer or artist how they should make a work, but I prefer the first version of this partly because it began to seem paranormal by the last one lol
Yes, I am perfectly fine, Rain, that you like the first one best. Trying to paint "struggeling" as a subject will not produce a pleasing painting to put on a blog banner or hang in your living room. I can also understand the paranormal perception of something that has twists and turns and torment.
Well, since i write paranormals, I don't see that as a negative comment-- just the energy of that particular stage. Struggling or scary could work for a show somewhere but probably not a senior center. I've seen it in downtown Portland galleries though.
Not at a Senior Center? Or assisted living residence like The Corvallis Caring Place? I don’t see any reason not to show it at either place.
You can see how they take it but generally, I'd say a place like that doesn't want struggle on their wall. We are more into that when we are younger. The older we get, the more we want something upbeat to make us feel good. Struggle is for younger folks
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