Lately, I've been rescuing some neglected strays. No, I'm not talking about cats (although I've done that and have 4 litterboxes to prove it!). When I paint on location, I always end up with a few paintings that just fizzle out. Or maybe I've fizzled out. I used to push myself to finish these before packing up, but I've learned that that never works. Once the painting energy says bye-bye, it's gone and there's no surer way to ruin a good start than to try and finish it when I'm tired, hungry, and gotta go to the bathroom. So I bring them back, and put them in the flat file. And sometimes they languish there for years.
Yesterday, I was looking for some Wallis Sanded paper and ran across a few of these. What have I got to lose? I can always put them back in the drawer if things don't go well. This task fit my mood very well. I didn't have the energy to start anything new, so why not work on something already started? I didn't have any reference photos, which could have been a problem. So my task was to make these paintings look beautiful and interesting on their own merit, rather than try to capture a specific place.
It was fun, and I think quite successful. Here's a before and after. I thought the sky was very flat, so I added a few lighter tones. I also wanted to warm up the sunlit sides of the tree and bump up the contrast. I added lots of greens, purples, and oranges to the dark sides to add interest. I also took out a lot of extraneous branches in the background since I thought they detracted from the trunk. I am pretty happy with this rescued stray. It is a different take on a very familiar subject matter. I matted it in black, and put it in a gold flecked black frame and it looks pretty smashing, IMHO.
"Still Standing" 9 x 12 pastel, $300
Here are two other rescues. These actually came from one painting that I started in 2008 in Mountainair, New Mexico. I had just laid down the darks of the mountain and the tawny colors of the field when I completely ran out of energy. Yesterday, I wasn't really in the mood to do big field landscapes since I had done a number of those lately, so I thought I'd take a totally different tactic here. I turned these into two smaller paintings and one of them turned into a beach dune scene. The beach scene just seemed to evolve while I was building up the grasses. Hey, this reminds me of Assateague Island! So, while it is not a specific location on Assateague, it is true to the mood and the nature of the island.
"Sundrenched" 6 x 9 pastel, $175
"Beach Path" 5 x 5 pastel, $100
So, lesson of the day? Don't throw away any unfinished work.
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