This is the painting from last weeks Master Class, and some details of the painting. The model posed from 10 am until 4 pm with an hour lunch break, Saturday and Sunday. I worked some more on it later in the week. The painting is about three feet wide.
This, the third of three paintings done in an olive grove, in July, in Tuscany, at twilight. This was painted a couple of days ago. I think this will be the painting that I keep, to remind myself of the time spent in the olive grove. I only wish that I had several more days here to paint here... Well, on the other hand it IS beastly hot, so maybe enough is enough.
It took four weeks of intensive outdoor painting to reach this level of fluency in painting, and I hope to somehow maintain that perspective and energy.
I hear that the sun has returned to Holland this week. But autumn looms, likely next month. Although I will miss the Tuscan sun, perhaps I can find a way to illuminate the well-hidden beauty of the dark and rainy space of Holland.
This was a painting in which I scraped all the paint off after a couple of hours work, sat on the ground in disgust and thought, "What the hell am I doing out here, anyway?" Alone, hot, and tired away from all the comforts of a desk or home. I empathize with Van Gogh. He once spent a week painting in the sunflower fields in the hot sun and struggled to capture what he saw. He couldn't sell his paintings to save his life. At some point, I'm sure he began to wonder "What's the point?" But he persevered, and so did I, and with a few more hours of work it all came together. And, I still have both ears.
I've been taking an abstract painting class at the International Art Club of the Hague. This is a painting of a lake in north-central Minnesota in winter, from memory. It is kind of an abstract landscape, in that it comes entirely from what I remember, without reference to a photo. Painting this way is very liberating, allowing me to "see" and apply the paint in a very different way. Because I am not trying to represent what is in front of me, I am free to explore the paint's texture and color and its application becomes much looser and freer.
A couple of days ago, I had a bad painting day. Everything I did was terrible.
Rather than give up, I kept wiping the canvas clean and starting over. For several hours this went on.
It is important to end a painting session on a good note, otherwise if you give up when you fail that is what you remember, the failure. So keep at it until the painting works, and don't be afraid to start over. Eventually, your head will get out of the way and the painting process will take over and it will be magical again.
When I finally felt I could live with the image on the canvas, I stopped. This is the resulting painting. For fun, I took some pics of the flowers to show the inspiration.
Yesterday, I had an hour to do some more painting and so worked on the project from the day before. Here's what the painting looks like now. Fortunately, we've had two sunny days in a row, so I've had ideal conditions for outdoor painting. The house is lit by the late afternoon sun.
It is still in progress, and will change significantly. I am starting to get some of the colors down, but have a lot of work to do. For example, the darks can get darker, and some of the whites that are not in sunlight should be darker.
Yesterday, I had a little bit of time to do some painting, and I grabbed at the chance. I set up the easel outside, and did a "quick" oil-painting sketch of the house. This is the stage where you get the main form down, and a sense of the lights and darks in the painting. This stage is called the underpainting, and is unfinished. It takes 5 minutes to an hour plus to get this down on canvas, depending on how rusty your drawing skills are and how long it takes the creative juices to start flowing. For me, this took an hour and a half, since for the first hour and 20 minutes I insisted on painting rather awful schwack.
This, the third of three paintings done in an olive grove, in July, in Tuscany, at twilight. This was painted a couple of days ago. I think this will be the painting that I keep, to remind myself of the time spent in the olive grove. I only wish that I had several more days here to paint here... Well, on the other hand it IS beastly hot, so maybe enough is enough. 
This was a painting in which I scraped all the paint off after a couple of hours work, sat on the ground in disgust and thought, "What the hell am I doing out here, anyway?" Alone, hot, and tired away from all the comforts of a desk or home. I empathize with Van Gogh. He once spent a week painting in the sunflower fields in the hot sun and struggled to capture what he saw. He couldn't sell his paintings to save his life. At some point, I'm sure he began to wonder "What's the point?" But he persevered, and so did I, and with a few more hours of work it all came together. And, I still have both ears.
