Painting Progression #1 A Forest Grove.

I remember seeing a movie about 10 years ago or so, where a film crew focused on a picasso painting as he worked on it over however many hours. It was amazing to watch the animated changes play out across the canvas. It also brought a layer of transparency to painting that I thought was curious. You could follow the decision making process. I thought, it would be good to try something like that with my paintings. Digital imaging is cheap, and looking at the images in succession seems like a way to learn something.

This first image was from the 19th of January. I had several sessions on the work already, having first laid down an acrylic underpainting. I believe this was the first time that most of the acrylic ground had been covered by oils.

What I like at this point:

  • The odd colors that are bubbling up. Most notably the blue in the upper right section, and the red along the tree in the middle. The red vibrates off of the leafy greens, and the blue gives an atmospheric, sunlight exposure.
  • The “fractured” look. It’s a bit of a variant on what I have been chasing lately, but shares the dominant characteristic. Frustratingly enough, I have not been able to put words to exactly what it is. At best, think of frost on a window… the surface structure that provides a cohesiveness for the frost… I feel like that shows up in areas of my paintings. I haven’t been able to get that sense across a whole canvas yet, (with maybe the exception of the lyrical brownfield paintings) but want to get to it. The look has primarily been more organic than fractured before this painting. I was intruiged.

The next day, the 20th, the painting looked like this. The main work done here seems to be on the grass ground. Moving things into place, and trying to get the intricate shadow patterns. Some nice things:

  • The green core in the shadow on the 3rd tree from right. Almost serves to bring that physical space closer to you, the kind of intimacy of a show on grass in bright sunlight.
  • Also- between the center two trees, I started to get the atmospheric purple effect of distance. Purple mountains majesty and whatnot.
  • The upper left- an effort to chase the more familar “swirly organic” version of the previous “frost fracture.” Maybe this blog will help me clarify how to explain exactly what I’m getting at there.

The 23rd.

Bringing the sun out. Took it straight through that previously mentioned blue in the upper right, and now the remnant blue peeking out starts to work nicely. Keeping a bit of the fracture, but still working to “set up” everything in place. After setting up comes refinement. But at this point I am starting to recognize a problem with the 3rd tree from the right. Check back for the next update to see if I fixed it well. Next week will probably be some progress paintings of a Sycamore Tree I am working on.