The Collage of My August 2015 Paintings

The collage of my August 2015 Paintings

I guess I was in the mood for flowers last month.  Look at how many florals I painted in August!  Which painting is your favorite?

"Red Poppy Dance" (watercolor on paper; 10" x 10")

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Red Oriental poppies with delicate blue green fronds dance against a blue sky, which was not a blue sky at all in the reference photo!.  As the painting progressed from the bottom of a quarter watercolor sheet (15" x 11"), it became clear that dark, lush green background all over interfered with the vivid red petals of the poppies. The painting was about to become too choked with intense colors.  There would be no respite for the eye or a breathing space.

I cut the bottom portion, making the painting a square, and made the foliage lighter.  You can't paint what you see; you have to follow the direction of the unfolding painting.

"Passionate Poppies" (oil on stretched canvas; 12 x 16") sold

sold

Imagine coming across a field of red poppies.  Your heart leaps with joy!  This is a painting to blast you out of the winter doldrums.

"Poppy Field" (oil on linen; 16" x 12") sold



After
sold

"Poppy Field" before revision

"Evening Island" (oil, 14" x 11")
sold

I have a tendency of quitting a painting too soon.  It's not because I am lazy.  It's because of the fear factor--if I continue working on this pretty darn good painting, I am going to ruin it!  Last week, in his first class of the winter term, John Murray told the students to be brave: "No one is going to die here.  We are not performing a brain surgery.  So go ahead, use big brushes and lots of paint, and knock yourself out."  Or something like that.

We got a good laugh at his encouraging comments, but they got me thinking.  I have a few paintings that are supposedly finished and framed.  Whenever I look at them, however, I am bothered.  Yesterday I decided to do something about this nagging sensation and unframed a couple of the guilty paintings.  There was nothing to lose, you see?  Just as when a painting is a knock-out, it is a knock-out; when a painting doesn't work, it doesn't work.  No judges will like them; nobody will buy them either.

"Poppy Field" was too wispy.  It looked good only when I turned on a lamp next to it.  So I turned up the chroma (color intensity) of the poppies and greens in the foreground.  For "Evening Island," I increased the value scale.  The sky along the horizon was lightened and the grassy foreground was deepened.  I also added texture with a rough bristle brush, dipping it into pure paints and mixing colors directly on the painting.

I am happy to report that no one died in the process and I just rescued two paintings from the ignominy of mediocrity.  Not a bad reward for courage!