Dancing with paint…

Hubbie often asks what I’m thinking as I paint or draw.  Most often it is a dance.  Making changes to color, line or shape in one area of the canvas might mean changing something else to make the whole painting work together.

This is the sketch I started with.  It’s a scene I drew from a small car bridge in New Mexico.  I got frustrated with the plethora of information and whittled it down to see just the masses and their directional shapes.

On day 1 I chalked in the outlines on canvas gessoed in black.  I eliminated the side road since it seemed to compete with the river, and not in a good way.  When I was happy with the composition, I laid down some flat colors… ones I thought would generally fit.

It was pretty clear after day 1 that the sky was way too dark, so I changed it up a bit.

Once my solids were in place, I started adding transparent glazes to rough in some lights and darks.

Here I am getting too heavy-handed with the darks too soon.

I’ve thrown in some medium tones to soften up the darks.  I’ve also started trying to make the background go “cooler” in terms of color.  This can help give the sense of distance.

Trying to give the masses some shape here with lines and lights, but it seemed the overall picture was getting fragmented.

I probably could have stopped here, but when I put it in the hallway and stood back from it, it seemed to need more purple.  Heck, everything needs more purple.  Giggle.

I left last night thinking this was maybe done.  Then I looked at the photo on my phone and realized the highlights needed some toning down, especially on the forward hill tops.  I also decided the sky (while beauteously purple) was still too freakin’ dark… and I really was attached to a daytime scene set somewhat in reality.  And… maybe I needed higher highlights and lighter clouds…

Finished!!!  Whohoo!!!  And, of course, my photo sucks rotten eggs.  But, peer closely at the little house…

Don’t you want to just waltz right in?