Transformation of a Painting

The top painting began as the painting below. I thought I had resolved the painting, cleaned my palette and brushes, shut off the lights and returned home. Next morning when I arrived back at the studio I noticed that the dark spaces between the branches of one of the larger trees on the right was too dark in value and came forward rather than recede. I thought it would be simple enough to make the adjustment. One small adjustment led to another. I added a bit more definition to the small, isolated tree in the mid-ground area on the far right. I lost the subtlety I had liked in the grassy area. The painting lost its spark for me.

I'm not sure what happened next. Perhaps I began making a few more adjustments. At some point, the painting began to take on a new life, a far more vibrant life than the original version. The image began to have a heartbeat and I responded by giving it air to breath and space through which to move. I have had this experience many times while painting with watercolor, but only recently have I experienced it while oil painting.

Transformation is thrilling. Allowing the painting to go in a totally new direction resulted in a far stronger painting.

Getting around to Playing

After working for about six hours on the two paintings of Gaudi's walls of brick and stone I felt tight and lacking in creativity. It is one thing to look intently at a scene in front of me and to respond to the details that I pull out of the reality. It is quite another to study a photograph with the same intensity. Photographs are terribly limited when it comes to color. They can't help it. The color is created by pigment, not light. Translating pigment to pigment is quite different from translating light into pigment.

After deciding it was time to stop working on the brick and stones, to let the paintings dry and hope for a bit more energy to come from the next layer of glazing, my choice was to lock up shop and go home or to paint the first layer of glaze onto the last of the Road Series canvases. I had decided to use the painting Morning Dance as inspiration and to see what might happen. The painting is not at blue as it appears here.

With simplicity in mind I began to paint; I began to smile, to feel that rush of pleasure when something unexpected begins to happen. My fatigue vanished and I followed the muse. The final painting is another example of how working on a series results in breaking through barriers and finding myself in a new, unexplored territory. I adore simplicity, yet it is so difficult for me to express well. This painting is finished and I am delighted with the results.

Painting Out the Road

How refreshing.

As the painting developed, the road became less significant. During the final stages, nothing about the road worked anymore, the shape, the value, the color.... , it had served its purpose of being the seed and it was time for the road to vanish and vanish it did.

Clinging to elements in a painting that no longer work can be disastrous to the final outcome of a painting. Flexibility, willingness to allow the painting itself to begin dictating the resolution of composition, of color, of character and personality is an essential part of the creative process. Knowing exactly what the outcome should be and making sure that it turns out that way negates any chance of creativity being part of the process.

In order for a canvas to develop a personality, a direction of its own, a painter must start somewhere, plant the seed, do all she can to nurture the seed and then let go of the controls when she sees that something other than a duck has hatched out of the egg! For those of you who missed out on the joy of sitting on your mother's lap and listening to her read to you, I'm making reference to The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen.

Thunderstorms

Summer is not my favorite season. For me, the highlight of summer is thunderstorms. I love lying in bed, total darkness except for the flashes of lightning, the wind causing the curtains to billow into the room and the sound of rain on the gutters and ground. The sound of the rain pounding on the metal roof at the studio is even better.

A powerful storm moved through in the early hours of the morning taking with it the electricity at the studio. I've painted in the dark before, no reason to break my routine due to lack of light. A perfect opportunity to play with my paint, using extreme colors calculating the mixes in my head and making sure the values worked. Even after the electricity came back on I continued to play. As much as I have enjoyed working on the Road Series, I have also felt restricted by working representationally and focusing on relatively realistic atmospheric conditions.

One of the benefits of painting a series is that after having solved many of the common problems presented by the series, I can't help but veer off in another direction that usually suggests a fresh approach and ultimately stronger work.