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By the Shore
Watercolor, 7.5" x 11" on Arches 100% cotton cold press paper |
As a writer and artist, I often have the sensation of painting
myself into a corner. Maybe I’ve finished an essay or painting, and no other
ideas seem to be on the horizon. Or maybe the work is so awful that it seems
like I’ll never write/paint anything good again.
That feeling is an illusion, of course, but it can be quite
strong.
With this painting (above), created from a reference photo given by my current instructor Andy Evansen, I was in love with it after the first two washes--the light wash and then the middle-value wash in which I tried to connect
everything, a la Andy's technique. (See that middle stage just below.)
But once I added the figures and boat and
painted in a few darks, as the top painting—meh. Not so excited after that.
I’d painted myself into a corner.
So I did what I often do when I feel there’s no way out: I
opened my sketchbook and popped out a very impressionistic version of a house
in our neighborhood here in northern CA (see below).
This sketch has its
problems: The shadows on the bushes and ground just in front of the house are
way too dark, plus I worsened that heavy darkness by adding an extra layer of
cobalt blue to the sky, plus in general there are too many cool colors and not enough warm ones.
But. I’m out of the corner because this little sketch inspires me to create a more deliberate, but still loose, painting in which I’ll
keep a lighter sky and shadows.
Suddenly, a new idea—a new inspiration. A way out of the
corner, or so I hope. Stay tuned.
