Sunset Storm Clouds

Sunset Storm Clouds
11" x 14"
oil on canvas

I just finished an email a friend and fellow cloud painter, Ronnie Watt, about the frustrations of painting and the wonderful advice I have been given about how to deal with it.

With this particular painting, I found Mary Anne Cary's advice most helpful. She said "...when I question it all, I have to just try to stop what's going on in my head and paint without high expectations..."

Think about it. Its brilliant! She is not saying to lower your standards, but to let the painting be what it will be- to focus on the process rather than the product. Time for a new mantra for me! (Well, time to add a new one to the pile.) But how do you sum something like that up in just a few words?

When I felt that old familiar feeling of wanting to pull all my hair out because my painting looked like a big fat stinking mess, I stopped to count back from ten, and then started again with the intent of just letting this painting find its own way... so to speak. Really what I was doing was letting go of the anxiety attached to the desire for a good finished product and focused on the act of painting. I really have to concentrate to match colors. Especially grays.

Ya know, Julie Beck said basically the same thing. She said "...finish it and if you're not happy with it, do another."

There it is - Let the painting be what it will be.

More Clouds- A Different Start

OK.

So this time I made a few sketches (in my beloved Moleskine) to try to work out some of the design kinks before plopping the paint down. It all goes back to that P.A. (Plan Ahead) thing. I really shoot myself in the foot when I don't take the time to plan a painting.

In the first thumbnail I went all out with the drawing... well, as "all out" as you can get in such a small rectangle. In the second sketch, I broke the picture down into solid chunks of lights, mediums and darks so I wouldn't feel so overwhelmed by all the variation in the clouds. I felt a lot better about the design after doing that. I was looking for some enthusiasm to start this painting off, and this really helped.

I used this second sketch as a reference when drawing the design onto the canvas- I am trying not to rely so heavily on the photo. I am hoping this will help me loosen up a bit. I hatched in the darkest "blocks" to keep some of the confusion down. I got a bit frustrated with that last painting when I realized I had filled in a light spot with dark paint, in three different areas. Prevention is the best... um... preventing thing.

A little color theory fun-- the red font on both pages of the sketchbook is the same color. Ooo!

About that last painting... I wiped it with the intention of starting over. Can't find the photo, now - last time I saw it, it was in the clutches of an 18-month-old. It'll have to wait until my next batch of reference photos comes from Kodak.

Have I ever mentioned how much I like the internet?

Just upload some pictures into my Kodak account and tell them how I want the pictures and a few days later my prints magically appear in my mailbox! Its just brilliant I tell you!

I don't have to drop off film and wait for a week before the prints are ready. Remember the days when you couldn't just print the good pictures?

I love modern technology.

WIP - Clouds - and something of an Epiphany

Ya know how some paintings just seem to come easy? Just fly onto the canvas with little or no effort at all? Well, this isn't one of them. This one is a battlefield. Explosions and wounded all over the place. Bullets wizzing by your ears. There is shrapnel lodged in the doors of my kitchen cabinets.

Today I scraped off several large mounds of paint and am in the process of redefining some shapes... Someday this painting will come together. And someday soon, I hope, painting will come easier again.

I find myself searching for some meaning in in all this struggle. Does it mean I am coming onto a breakthrough of some sort? Does it mean I need to readjust some way of thinking that isn't quite working? Why am I searching for meaning in something that happens all the time? I know it is a cycle, but... sigh.

Reminds me of my toddler. I can usually tell when he is about to conquer some immense developmental milestone because he goes downhill for a little while. Not physically, but emotionally- upset most of the time, doesn't seem to know what he wants, easily frustrated, has trouble sleeping, etc. Its like he is fighting his way up a slimed, muddy hill covered in briars, and no one can help him get to the top. But when he makes his breakthrough everything is just hunky-dorey. Life is good.

That is totally how I feel with my artwork right now... like the last three or four have been really difficult. And I see a very labored look in them. I am so ready for a breakthrough of my own.

Hmmmm.... Ya know...

I have been looking at my recent paintings while typing this and I noticed that my brushwork has been getting progressively tighter and more controlled. All the while I have been goggling over other artists whose work is loose and much more impressionistic. No wonder I feel cramped. It could be that I am not feeling satisfied with staring at a photograph for days on end and need to spend more time outdoors painting the real thing.

Writing is good.

I am going ot have myself a little think on this, and I just might wipe this painting and start over... or just scrape off the larger globs of paint and reapply fresh paint with a larger brush and no glasses!

WIP - Clouds...

As promised.... the WIP photo. Having a bit of trouble with that pinky-orange in the upper left, but I think there was a smidge of blue (tucked around the side of my yellow) that was mucking up the purity of my mixed color.

I knew it was there... I didn't think it would have much of an effect. It did. Just enough to be irritating.

Good thing I can paint over paint! I might let a bit of this slightly muddy orange remain and act like some of the deeper parts of the cloud... We'll see how it goes.

I can hardly contain myself!!!

I have been stumbling through the world of art on the internet and came across a jewel! There is a lot of good stuff out there, but I would really really like you all to check out The Pochade Gallery. The gallery consists of two British painters, Carl Melegari and Antony Bridge, whose works are just exploding with color and life. And get this - they are plein air painters! Wait 'till you see their work- I love it! Makes me want to go outside more and paint.

Their styles differ, but I really like them both. They manage something I would really like to do myself, they know how to simplify the scene and still make it work.

I stumbled across a Dutch plein air painter whose work I adore as well- Rene PleinAir (that is his blog). Well worth your time- check him out. He also has that something that allows him to say a lot with very little. Just brilliant.


I don't have a picture to post at the moment... I do have another cloud painting on the easel, but have been a little obsessed with my piano. Just got it yesterday. I've been looking for one since last November. I am so excited!!! I have wanted to learn for a long time. This piano is going to do double duty- I get to learn, and my 1.5 year old will be exposed to it for a good while before he starts his lessons. Mua-ha-ha! He'll be so steeped in art and music that he will think everybody is like that! Lets rewrite the norm, shall we?

I'll post a picture of the WIP tomorrow.