first stage of july 7 creek, 17x21” which i just started this afternoon
2:50 PM: after working on changes to windows 1 most of this morning, i started a new 17x21” oil on linen. right now it’s a composition based upon photos of the creek i shot a few years back on july 7th. at this early stage it’s a drawing with colored pencils & no other medium. you can see here the inspiration for most of my recent plein air watercolors like the ones you see BELOW.
now i’m preparing to leave for the house so that mikela and i can take our afternoon walk up the creek on this rather warm day. 48° F is, in case you were wondering, unusually warm for us at 8,000 ft. at this time of year
12:47 PM: windows 1 following a second round of re-working moments ago
12:48 PM: the area on the upper right, above the crouching installer, was distracting from the whole, so rubbed it out & used mostly white oil paint with a few strokes of yellow oil stick to simplify the area. from afar, it reads way better. i may leave it for now & keep casting furtive glances as i move on to something new.
12:09 PM: when i brought windows 1 over to the house, it became clear to both of us that it was too busy. too much going on, which was not allowing the composition to work at a glance, which it always should, no matter what. so this morning, fresh from a good nights sleep, i began working back into it. at first i used collage. but that wasn’t working, so i removed what i had collaged and began re-working it just using oil paint & oil pastels. for example, the blue line on top, where his richly patterned shirt was, is oil pastel stick. from 20 feet away, where i’m currently sitting in the studio, it almost works, but not quite. so i’ll go back into it & see what emerges.
BELOW: before & after
