I thought I’d blog this painting’s progress because I haven’t done a painting for a while (those Tree Dancers keep leaping onto the page) and thought I’d try a different process than one I’d been using recently. So I just started painting directly without any preliminary workup or sketch on the canvas. My idea is rather amorphous, wanting to capture the curves and flows of colour and energy and interaction between land and sky, using (yes, you guessed it) a Tree Dancer. I don’t have a solid image in my head, more of a general series of flows and color, and I still don’t know what it will look like when done. Which is exciting, but also a tad frustrating because I don’t want to work something over and over only to cover it up as the process of painting matures.
16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas
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I’ve been under canvas in Awenda Provincial Park, and didn’t get anything done on this piece. Yesterday I was able to spend some time working on it, and here is the update.
This is a classic example of a piece that seems to trap me within it. I spent hour after hour working on shadings and gradations that in all probability don’t make any real impact on the final appearance of the work. I also feel rather unsure about the success of it – asking myself if this was what I wanted to do and how I wanted it to turn out. Perhaps some proper feedback from folks who look at it will help me with that one. All in all though, the importance of weaving sky and land and trees, depths and planes and such – that was what I was concerned with and that has happened. Which is, in the end, what I wanted to do from the start.