Just for fun I thought I'd show you how I took an old unfinished canvas and am painting over it. Many times the painting underneath will influence the painting I'm working on which I find to be both challenging and inspiring. Because of the interference of the original half finished painting underneath, it can give ideas either for use now or for future reference, ideas that I may not have thought of.
The plan is to have white-ish tree trunks and branches against a dark night sky. I like to play with the negative spaces, those spaces in between that we think we don't see when looking at an actual treescape. The plan was to have different colors painted in these negative spaces, but after having done some of that I didn't like the effect and painted it all in in blues.
As I worked the trunks and branches the painting "speaks" and there is an urge to put a full moon in the background.
As the moon gets painted in, I feel that many of the lower branches need to be painted over and the tree trunks need slimming and be muted to give a more mystical feeling to the work.
At this point I stop and hang the painting on the wall and let it rest. I want to see it with fresh eyes days or weeks later and make sure this the "feeling" I want to convey through this painting is happening. I will be changing things around and fine tuning certain areas.
The painting below is nowhere near finished but now the basic overall part is done for now. Now comes the "real" fun of finishing it, which may take days or weeks.
2 comments:
Hi Hellenne! The silvery trees against the dark sky is very effective. And what you did with the bottoms of the tree trunks definitely adds to the mystery!
Thanks Deborah. We'll see what the end result will be!
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