Field Flow

Field Flow 3, Oil on Canvas 16" x 20"

The warmer temperatures which we have experienced the past week or so have made the winter more bearable. It’s great to be able to run outdoors again. Oops, ice storms and another round of single digit temps threaten to cause disruption for the next week or so.  Oh well…

It’s tough to paint some days. I love to paint. I love to create paintings. It’s the other functions that seem to throw a wrench into my painting activities. While trying to paint, I find myself thinking about the applications for the summer art fairs which need to be mailed. Various contest entries which need to be submitted for my watercolor paintings as well as my oil paintings (I guess it’s a right brain/left brain thing). It’s mid-January and the Rock Valley Spring semester classes start up in less than a month. No problem, got that in auto-drive. Late last week, I received a call from my boss at RVC with a request to host a watercolor class this summer. Summer? There is still snow on the ground. it’s still cold and I have to formulate a plan for a summer class. Thanks to e-mail and addresses of current, past and prospective students, I received some good input. We’ll do a workshop. Now, figure out what we can do and write a description which will attract enough students to make it enjoyable for all.

I created the painting Field Flow 3 using sketches and a reference photo taken during last weeks travels. Small creeks such as this, bisect the fields and offer a great design element. The natural curves of these creeks help give a feeling of motion to what could otherwise be a stagnant design.

Some images work out easier than others. On this painting, the drawing went in fine. The background elements (sky and woods) worked easily enough. But I ran into some difficulties. In watercolor, work from light to dark. In Oils, work from midtones and darks and then add in the lights and whites. On this painting, old habits caused me to revert to my watercolor ways while working the foreground.  I let too much white paint bleed into the creek bank and had difficulty acheiving the shadow intensity which I needed. I was stubborn and persevered. I worked it and finally acheived the look that I envisioned. Chalk that up as another in a long line of learning experiences.