Here is a quick photo of the first light washes going on just to find shapes and areas of colour. It is at a strange angle because it is a dark and dreary day and the shadows from my lighting made me choose this angle. I am matching colours roughly from photos from space and they have to go a lot darker.
My next painting is for the Porcupine Art Club’s annual show in our local museum. The theme of the show is Kintshugi. It is from the craft of repairing broken valuable ceramics with gold in the cracks showing not only the piece’s history but also making it more beautiful. I decided to paint a possible future when there are no more wars or armed conflicts and the world will be peaceful. I will show the earth floating in space where the countries presently fighting will have peaceful borders shown by gold.
The most time was spent doing research on where armed fighting was going on. Lists vary so I did the best I could. I also could not show the whole globe so I concentrated on the Africa, Middle East, and Eastern European areas. I have outlined the countries at war in gold and will now start painting the earth without showing the other countries as if there were no borders.
This is where I am now after a few hours work.
This is my first serious attempt in doing a loose painting. Which means it’s not photorealistic, more impressionistic. I don’t love it but I had to paint to our art club’s theme. The good part is it only took two days. There is some glare on the corner of the paper because the drying paper warped the stretcher and caused some buckling. I’m not very happy with it but at least I have something to put in the show.
Another session after drying. It has to dry again before I can do more. The sky is getting near to the actual photo colours as well as the sand. Still a few more washes to go.
Our local art club has a show in the museum here in December. The theme is “Panorama: Northern Ontario Landscapes”. I hate doing landscapes and have procrastinated for months. I finally found one of my photos to try and paint loosely but just started it this morning. I have two days before it has to be photographed and three days before it needs delivering! I have to paint it, wax it, and frame it. Wish me luck.
This is where I’m at after just over an hour. Many washes left to go but it has to dry before I add more washes.
It is 16 x 20”.
I have finished this painting but still have work to do to get it ready for an outdoor venu where the paintings will be hung on trees along a walking trail for a week. It needs a spray varnish, framing, and as a final touch, I’m going to add Cedar cuttings on a few places around the edge. This is a good place for a bit of experimentation and that’s why the painting is more impressionistic rather that my usual realistic style.
Yesterday I spent a couple of more hours on this. I’m going to darken the background so you will just be able to make out the fact there is vegetation around. The focus will be the flowers. Still a few layers of colour to go for those. I have to lift some paint on the Tulpi leaves for highlights as well.
