Working out the level of detail

I think the left-most (north side) hills are 95% done. Earlier in the week I started painting in the deciduous trees at the base of the middle hill, and took it to a level of detail that really seemed too much for the rest of the painting. I was afraid the overall scene would get lost in that much detail. I know that's the opposite of my main worry when I started (would there be enough detail to be interesting), but there you go. Anyway, I simplified it and darkened it, and I'm stopping work on that section for now. I may refine it more later...or not. I may end up wanting to put a lot more drama in the clouds.

Last night I roughed in the foreground across all three panels, so today I'm starting the 2nd pass on the south side hills. Only five weeks left to finish it!

Connecting the audience to the painting

The Upper Pond

My plan was to get this Upper Pond painting all done except for the highlights before the Villa Catalana Cellars Paint-Out last Saturday, and then work on those outside at the Villa, with the sun sinking in the west and all the people walking around and shmoozing. It was a great plan, and I got there at 4:30, an hour before the public came in. It was about 80º—better than I hoped, even—and I carted all my equipment and paintings up to a shady spot at the top of the hill where more people walk around. But when I set up my long-unused French easel, I found I had forgotten to bring my white paint. I walked around to the other painters to see if I could buy or borrow a dollop of white, but they were all either oil or pastel artists. I did a bit of glazing on a few places, but I really needed the white to do any real work. D'oh! It's a line item in my packing list now.

So I leaned back in my chair, listened to the band, and just pretended it was a forced vacation, and the only thing I could do was relax. In a little while people started walking around, and a few times an hour someone would come over and talk for a minute.

I did have a great time, despite not being able to paint there. I finished it up yesterday in the studio, thinking about the things people had said to me about it. Almost everyone who commented on this one of the upper pond with the property and the cabana behind it, said they loved the blue. One teenage girl said it was her favorite painting there, and that I "got the blue perfectly". I found that interesting because I had deliberately intensified the blue of the water and the sky, using pure Ultramarine blue with white to lighten it. The actual colors of the water and sky that day weren't anything like a match for my painting, they were both a warm azure blue, part cobalt and part cyan. So I think what she meant was that it matched something in her memories or her imagination. I was fine with painting the plants and the cabana their natural colors, and the same for the mimosa tree, but I really wanted the blue and yellow to go beyond what anyone would call natural.

Maybe the way to use color to connect to people is to connect to their imaginations, not to the natural colors of the landscape.

No more small paintings till after I get A Bigger Gorge finished, but this was a really useful exercise.

Art In The Garden at Villa Catalana Cellars this Saturday

The Lower Pond

Once again—fingers crossed that the temperature doesn't jump back up again—I'll be at the Paint-Out at Villa Catalana Cellars this Saturday from 5:30 to 9pm. I've suspended work on A Bigger Gorge to work up a couple paintings to bring—this one, which is almost finished, and hopefully another one that won't be so far along. I expect there'll be another dozen or more other artists there as well. You'll be able to purchase food and wine, and art if you like. If you'd like to go, you can find out more and make your reservation here.

Discovering a new love of painting

I'm trying to figure out why I'm enjoying working big so much. I've noticed that I'm not worrying about the outcome anywhere near as much as I used to. I think the sketching helped with that, but it also occurs to me that having to work with something so much bigger than I am, where I can only fit a small portion of it at a time in my field of view, maybe I have to trust that what I'm doing is going to fit in.

It's only about 30% done, time-wise, but it's going in the right direction. I've got almost all the shapes defined. I just want a little more shape definition on the north side (left side.)

I think there's something else going on that may be more personal—probably everyone wouldn't feel this way, but when I load up my big brush and step up to the canvas and apply the paint with a big stroke, it just feels like the most natural thing on earth. It feels like I've been doing it for centuries, and I'll keep doing it as long as I possibly can. It's not like I'm any good at it yet—I'm still doing a lot of repainting. But it feels like I've finally—finally—found something that totally belongs to me, and it's not a thing—it's a movement, it's a dance with color and form. It's even better than having a really good gardening day. It's like being myself in the most clear and unfettered way I know.

I love how it fills my visual space with color while I'm working on it—I really do like being surrounded by colors. But now that it's looking more like actual landforms, it's almost like looking out a big picture window at something 'real'. Glazing over this underpainting is what I'll be doing for the next several weeks.