"C", day 4
This painting is undergoing some radical changes! I was feeling bogged down, and I really didn't like it. I got rid of the cherries - they were too dark. I painted out the crayons - I thought they were kind of silly. And I threw out the flowers - they were too fluffy and cute. I went to the garden center and found a nice little cactus, and a croton plant. I changed the picture on the wall to Cezanne's "The Card Players".
It was a lot of fun today to paint over the old stuff and paint in the new. Much of the paint was dry, but some areas of the blue cloth were still wet from the other day. The trick to painting over wet areas with something completely different, as with the cactus, is to use a lot of paint, and apply it as if you're frosting a cake. I didn't really have to do that anywhere else, such as the croton, because the carnations had been pretty dry. I just scraped the area down with my palette knife to get rid of any ridges - same with the crayons. I worked on the checkered cloth some. I left the croton leaves to dry a little, so when I go into it with the bright yellow and red, which all the leaves have, the paint will sit crisply on the surface of the leaves. I'm kind of liking the way the left side of the painting is so crowded, and the right side has open spaces. I'm considering whether to put anything else on the right.
This painting is fun again. Sometimes you just have to make big changes.
I take back my comment of yesterday! (And now I understand better those who tell me a painting is fine when I know it is not...I'm hearing that myself lately while finishing/reworking a batch of paintings.) You have an idea in your head and could see it wasn't working, we viewers do not.
ReplyDeleteI like that blue openness of the tablecloth giving emphasis to the almost-complementary colours of the crescent formed by the checkered cloth and the conch. Also, I prefer the small range of colours in this version; it is more unified. I also love blue-orange paintings, and see this as one. Right on!
You haven't lost a thing by having fewer C things, and have gained a far stronger composition that is much easier to see. I guess you had two choices; pare down as you did, or fill it so there was almost nothing but stuff, a sort of Sondra Freckleton piece.
I liked it before, but I like this too - I'm happy just as long as you don't take out that cantaloupe!! Secondly, leave in the cow and shell if you can... my triangle of happiness. Thirdly: What's happening to all those cupcakes, need I ask?!
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