Coming Our Way

Coming Our Way

7x7"

oil on canvas

for Twenty Minute Challenge

 June 11, 9:00 - 9:20 p.m
sold

After working on the water lily for a few hours I needed to change it up a bit. I didn't want to take a long break, so I decided to do another piece for the Twenty Minute Challenge blog. I found a photo (still on my camera) of foreboding clouds from the weekend before when a storm blew in during Tommy's baseball game. I knew they would be fun to paint in oils- just pushing the paint around and only worrying about the mood, not so much the detail. The bottom of the photo had buildings and fences, people and cars which didn't interest me, so I kept it simple and pretended the picture was from the lake (as are many of my reference photos). I like the aqua blue on the bottom- in fact, that was the very first colour I put down. That day, it was quite amazing how quickly the weather changed and how dark it became, so I mixed some colours to get a black, ominous feel happening. It felt great to move fast and to paint from a more emotional, intuitive viewpoint as opposed to the detailed and planned strategy I have taken with the commission. That being said, I actually really do enjoy both processes equally. I don't think I will ever chose one over the other. I am gaining a bit of confidence in myself and realizing that there is not anything inherently better about painting in a "loose" manner. There can be really brutal "loose" paintings and there can be absolutely glorious "tight" paintings. My goal as an artist is to work from an honest place and to express the world as I see and feel it in the moment that I am painting it.

As the quote to the right says, "I am large, I contain multitudes."