This Week's Progress

I am still working on this 30"x40" painting of ground dogwood, a beautiful groundcover plant that covers sections of the boreal forest floor. In the spring, the leaves are green and a white flower surrounds the pale green berries. Later in the summer the flower falls off and orange berries appear. In autumn the leaves turn an intense red. I love the changes this plant goes through.

This is a painting I completed a few years ago of this same plant in early summer.

I made a reduction linocut of this subject as well.

A Finished Print and a New Painting

This reduction print is finished. There are 8 colors, although the 3 reds are so similar it is a subtle transition. I probably could have used 2 reds, or better yet, pushed up the contrast. I still have some minor touch ups to do and need to sign and edition. I have started working on my next reduction print and will write about it in my next post.

 

 

I am not quite finished with my other painting, but needed to get started on something new. I have been craving red for awhile. It seems that once the snow falls I am caught up in blues. This is a close up view of ground dogwood in the fall. I am realizing that I have a tendency to break many of my own rules. I always tell my students to tone their canvas before painting and to lay the colors out before applying thicker paint. I just jumped into this one. I made a print of a similar section of the ground last spring. The entire time I was working on that print I was thinking that it would make a nice painting.

Perfection

 

 I am not a perfectionist, and I find myself more and more pleased by this as I get older. I used to think not being a perfectionist was a flaw, that I should always be striving for perfection. But, I have discovered that if I do not let go at some point, I will never finish anything. Every piece of work I do could be better. I can see all the flaws, every single one of them. But I also love aspects of all of my work, well maybe not all, but most. The idea is to love more each time.

 

I have been making progress on this painting. There is a lot going on in this one. I re-darkened some of the trees since last week and have been repainting areas and adding definition.

 

 

Some changes since the last entry.

 

I am very happy with the way it is turning out. I am still struggling with the top--still not sure how I will resolve the background. I know I am getting close because I am getting excited about starting a new painting.

 

More work has been done to the top branch and the right-hand side. I added more pink leaves and berries to the middle and redefined some, but not yet all, of the dried leaves.

 

 

 

A Painting is a Problem to Solve



I am fighting with this painting right now. It started out so great--they always do. It is almost a guarantee that when I start a painting, that first time or two I spend working on it, I end on such a high note. I love where it is going and think to myself what a strange and odd thing it is that I have not yet been contacted for a solo show at the MOMA in NYC.

 



 

Then I work on it some more and some of it is okay, but my confidence gets a bit shaken. This stage drags on. I cannot give up, I have already put so much into it...and I have to beat it, I cannot let this canvas win.

 

 My mind looks something like this...

 

...This painting feels disorganized and too busy and I should have taken more reference photos and spent more time drawing...but it snowed last night, so I can't. There are dried fireweed fragments in my studio that I would like to throw out...I need to make it less complicated. I want the foreground to come forward, I need to push the trees back...less information...why do I paint anyway? I have no where to store all of these canvases. I should do some laundry...

 

 

I keep thinking about it, it is always on my mind. I also have photos on my phone of the painting at its most recent stage. I look at them and I start to put a plan together.  This morning I made the trees in the background lighter to push them back. I am not 100% convinced that this is the way to go, but I feel ready to fight. I am planning on a long painting session tonight.

 

Wish me luck!