Hope's Art Journey

This is a follow up of the post I did on working two pieces at once.  So much for that project.  I can truthfully say that my experiment with black ground on paper was a bust.  Art is a thought process and I never could get my head around the yucky surface of the black with silver paint.  Everything I did looked very primitive.  As I think on it some more, the photo I was using may not be a subject that is worth doing.  It will definitely sit up for awhile until I find a better method for working it.  I do feel good about using the buff watercolor ground with crayons and conte.  That is fun and will be a way to work in some less expensive small pieces for my galleries.

The second piece of art I have been working on is the 40" x 16" painting of a Cypress tree.  It was good that Robert Genn had a newsletter that addressed "cropping".  I do that a lot but I had planned this tree to stop before the top of the painting.  I reevaluated that and could see that it would have more power if it goes out of the top edge  as well as on the side.  I drew it in, blocked it in with paint and could see that the pattern of the limbs was wrong.  So, I decided the only recourse was to paint the sky.  It is more difficult than painting the whole sky in first but painting the sky around the limbs and foliage is shaping with negative space.  It is taking more time because I will have to rework some of the limbs and foliage as I correct their shapes but it looks better already.  Also,  I'm not sure of the sky color but it will need several coats anyway and will work itself out as I change the brightness of the foliage.  I will send out an image in progress in my newsletter this week.

The other thoughts in this blog is how life gets in your way - sometimes in very good ways and sometimes in bad.  The good thing that has happened to take away from my painting time is that my granddaughter is here to visit.  She's 14 and a delight so this is a good thing.  The bad thing is that I hurt my knee chasing after my 87 pound lab when he went racing down the street to greet another dog.  I've been limping around with this for 2 months until I realised it was time to see an orthopedic doctor.  You know the drill - xrays and an MRI.  I also had a large cyst behind my knee which required 2 Ultrasounds (they were checking for blood clots).  I haven't stopped walking and somehow the cyst got quite large.  The good news is that our granddaughter is going to stay to help with the dogs.  I hope to schedule the surgery soon.