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Today's thoughts on painting...

My last blog post was about my almost completed "Roaming the Palo Duro" painting, of which I blogged how I painted the black horse and yet a black horse isn't really black just as snow isn't only white. Snow has a lot of blues and violets which will read as white if sufficiently executed. A black horse has its local color "black" but its skin has reflected light from the sky, the rocks and plants. This affects the color of the shadows as well as the part of the horse bathed in the light. Anyway, I'm still not satisfied with my management and execution of the paint on the black horse, and so I've been repainting it all over again in my mind throughout the weekend. I have other projects I want to work on this week so I'm setting it aside again for a few days until I'm certain as to how I want to proceed. I refuse to abandon the project because I have almost 200 hours in the painting. Most paintings generally take me 30 to 60 hours to complete, but a large canvas presents its own challenges, such as the time it takes to cover it with paint. Sometimes I get fatigued after working on a particular painting for hours and hours and so when that happens, I tend to focus on other unfinished projects until I'm refreshed enough to go back to a painting that I've struggled over. It may be days or even months before I return back to work on the problem painting. 

Today, I'm going to start a new painting and also work on completing yet another unfinished painting (a River Birch tree in autumn). This painting is 40 x 30 oil on canvas.  My new project will be a 16 x 20 oil on board. I chose this size because I have both a frame and a same sized canvas in my studio which will help me start and finish another painting within only a few days.

Okay, I've got to get out of this chair and start painting. Until my next post, take care and God Bless!