A Bit of Painting

For better or worse, here's a few pictures of things I have been working on recently. All are acrylic paintings, done using Golden heavy body acrylics on stretched canvases of different sizes.

The first, an Italian wine country landscape, has been in process since probably February or March. I have meandered about, changing the foreground, changing the mid-ground, and in general just being indecisive about where I am going with this one. There is still some cleanup to be done in the foreground, detailing of the wall, and figuring out what exactly to do with the weird patch in the center of the mid ground. Oh well, it's a work in progress... This is a 16" by 20" stretched canvas, so it is larger than most of the practice pieces I am doing these days. It has occurred to me at various points that if I chopped the bottom third off of the painting, I would have been done months ago. My level of satisfaction with this one is medium-ish. If I can finish the bottom portion the way I hope to, that could get better.

Italian Landscape - in process (still...)

The second is an 8" by 10" autumn scene (small stretched canvas). The original painting of this took about 2 hours on a weekend morning in late August or early September. The never-ending fiddling with it has taken the last 6 weeks or so, 10 minutes at a time, with days in between. It has definitely been a case of knowing where I want to end up with it, but not having the technical skill to get there. There is also something to be recognized in the limited ability to fix things that have got wrong early in the painting process after the fact. Amp chuckles at this one as the Little Painting That Will Never Be Done... Well, for better or worse it's done. My satisfaction level is medium-high on this one. Mostly because I know where it used to be compared to where it ended up. With a critical eye and a willingness to not let it go, it got better. I should note that this is a copy(-ish) of a painting video from Gebahi Artworks on YouTube. His is better (shockingly)...

Autumn Path

The third painting is a spring/summer landscape on an 8" by 10" stretched canvas, done this morning in about a half hour. While Amp (and I, from time to time) watched Rafael Nadal win his 13th French Open title and 20th overall Grand Slam, I wanted to throw some paint on a canvas in a very impressionistic style, with simple colors and bold brush strokes. As far as that goes as a goal, I would consider this a huge success. After the initial painting, I would wander back into the dining room from time to time and spend a few minutes adding a little but here and there, but it is certainly fair to say that this was painted in a total of less than 60 minutes of actual working time. I like it. Personal satisfaction level very high. And it was FUN to paint something like this quickly and with no regard to nit-picking details. 

Summer Landscape

Colors used in the third painting... The sky was only ultramarine blue and titanium white. Distant hills were only viridian green hue and titanium white. Foreground got more complicated. Permanent green light and indian yellow hue were the basis of the greens/yellows, with sap green, cadmium red medium hue, and burnt sienna filling in most of the rest of the foreground colors. Burnt umber and titan buff made the path, with cadmium yellow medium hue highlighting the bright yellows. As best I can remember. I have a lot of Golden colors on my dining room table...

Anyway, the learning experience continues. It is equal parts frustrating and exhilarating to be on the steep front end of the learning curve of how to execute a painting. The quality of my critical eye still vastly exceeds the quality of my painting ability. But I can take some comfort in the fact that I am getting better, on average, I think.

More importantly, I am having fun. With age (hopefully) comes some degree of wisdom, and I am enjoying the challenge of learning something new. I am reveling in the journey and not focusing on the destination.