First of all, acknowledgement of the holidays, and the spirit many including myself and my family celebrate. Sending love to individuals and parts of the world that need extra prayer and love right now. This blog topic was a difficult one this week. There are several recent events, activities, and ideas I could choose. Holidays have a way of providing many news worthy topics.
At last, I decided to show the progress on my recently revisited painting. The entire story behind this one is a longer story than I want to write in this blog post. I started this particular painting about seven years ago while living in Utah and it has been hanging in my living room. The initial idea for a series of grecian themed paintings came decades before that. I did some of them then. This one remained an idea, and even as I work on it, it feels healing. It is hard to put into words how healing the act of painting is for me. It is like communing with a different realm.
Here are some of the oil paints and materials I am working with. I recently made a trip to the local art store to replace a couple of paint colors which were low that I needed.
Next is the progress after the end of the weekend:
The sky and background have been altered, as has the slope of the foreground in relationship to the background, thus solving a structural problem I’d been attempting to solve for a while. The building seemed too precarious on the tip of a point of land. Now it looks more stable. I had been so attached to the placement of the little group of houses in the background but they never seemed right. Now the dwellings will be higher up.
My goal was to finish the entire thing last weekend, and showcase the end painting, but alas, I only finished the sky and most of the background. The painting is 30″x40″ and it takes time to make progress on a canvas so big. I can see the complete image in my mind, with slightly different variations. I am still working out scale and slope from the building to the woman. I also will make additional changes to the building. The lady will finally have legs, arms and a face and I am sure she will appreciate that.
These last images are the sketches I’ve recently done working through foreground content ideas:
I am sure I will do several more before I do any more painting. I will be on-call this week for my work, so I might or might not get much paint to canvas this week, but need to do more pre-work anyway. What is most important is complete… beginning again.
I am excited to see the finished painting!