A new record

Holy smokers, it’s been over a month since I last posted. I think that’s some kind of record, although I’m not going to take the necessary time to be sure. Enough time passing already!

So here’s the finished painting, Sky Pads 25.

These colors new to the series. Variations on blue and orange will always work out somehow.

I had quite a few decisions to make during this painting’s progress. Here’s a quick summary since it’s been so long that even faithful followers of this blog will have forgotten anything previously written about this piece.

The background initially took me aback. It came out quite differently than I expected even though I had no definite plan except for choosing the colors. The colors themselves chose to blend in intensity and combinations that I could not have predicted. As usual, I went with what I got anyway.

Mulled over the colors for the pads. In the original source photo they are variations of green and yellow. For whatever now long-forgotten reason that combination didn’t set me on fire vis a vis blending or complimenting the background. So I settled on a deep blue-green instead. The interesting part is that in a few places the paint of the leaf layers blended itself into the paint of the background–even though the background was a couple of weeks dry–and took on a more subtle dusty blue cast. Ya, so go with it again.

The most dangerous part was just after each painting session. I was never immediately thrilled with the results, but I knew I was going to keep on pushing through. As it happens, I paint with my canvas flat on a table. That’s a horrible perspective from which to make a judgement. So when I’m done for the day, I prop it up against the wall without looking at it and go into another room to clean up me and my paint tools. That usually takes a few minutes, and those few minutes are long enough for me to be away from the work and be ready to look at it with fresh eyes. When I returned to this one in its proper upright perspective I was amazed at how good it really looked. Every single time. Some sort of transformation while I was gone. I’m still looking around for signs of secretive helpful elves.