Waiting for paint to dry

Below are the final version of Sky Pads 34 and the one immediately preceding it. I actually finished it several days ago, but the last tweak I made to it was a pour of very wet but very transparent paint. For some reason only it knows, it refused to dry and if I set it upright to photograph it the paint started to run. That was not an effect that interested me, so I had to keep it flat for a few days until it decided to cooperate. I finally got a fairly good cell phone photo of it tonight. There’s a few feet of snow outside and a nasty wind, so I won’t be taking it out soon for a photo in natural light.

As for the reason for the final paint pour, I kept looking at the current stage like I almost always do, until it occurred to me what it was that was missing. That something was a sort of glue to hold the composition together. The background was too strong for the delicate plants, so the paint pour gave just enough sparkle to the plants and just enough toning down to the background. Here’s the comparison:

Second to last version on the left, final version on the right. When it gets good and dry it will get a coat or two of varnish before being framed. At the moment I have nothing else in the pipeline, so I will be looking through my endless files of photos for something interesting. The art supply store had a 1/2 off sale on 4 foot by 5 foot canvases, so I bought two as a challenge to find images for a gigantic diptych. That may not happen for a while, but stay tuned…