Hello

Thanks for looking. You can see more recent stuff at reinoart. Thanks for thinking about art.
r.

Did some work since yesterday's post

I still argue that there is still something needed to tie the overpass painting together. I'll be chewing on that piece of cud for a little while but will keep you in the loop. With that said I do feel some improvements have been made and it is closer to some end. The previous phase is here, and an earlier look can be obtained from that post. I am in an awkward place with this painting. I have done the "fun" parts but the painting is still unfinished. I did work on it as recently as yesterday though. It happens sometime, either frustration or intimidation will keep me from working on a painting. It is all a weird psychology. I like the way it is shaping up though. it was certainly an exercise in portrait painting if nothing else. It seems making my own flesh colors is much more useful than using the out-of-the-tube flesh color. Additionally I think I need to coax out a little more emotion on the faces. One o the reasons I chose this scene was the drama it portraits regardless of my abilities to capture it.
the early stages start here and then here and then here.
I have been ignoring this painting a lot. Poor little painting. I have no sense of its direction or of where it now stands. I think I need to wait for a rush of painting enthusiasm and tackle it then.

cheers
r.

Work in progress (aren't they all)

Sorry about the blurry image but this post is really about color so it isn't so necessary to have a crystal clear pic.
I felt the need to back up the picture so to speak. i did a coat of a neutral color to bring back a muted quality I wanted to build off of. The earlier stage of the picture is here. Perhaps this is a mistake, perhaps not. If I have one complaint at this point I think my ..... lets call it french grey, has too much yellow in it. I wanted a more blue or even purple tone. The color is made of purple,yellow, burnt umber and white. I was though seemingly unable to add enough purple to hide the yellow tones. Go figure.
In my head the picture is supposed to be about the emergence of the red truck from the shadows of the overpass. True this may fall under the bad habit of mine of putting a central subject in the middle of the canvas. We can discuss that when the painting is done.
ciao
r.

new

updates here.

trying

Sorry that i keep using the word

trying

. Anyhow, I saw some stuff recently that added to my desire to paint. I am still in the phase where I am painting unambitious pieces to help build up to the more ambitious stuff. There is some external issue (legitimate or not) that hinder me some. This of course should be file under E for excuses. I hope to show something soon.

on going somewhere

Part of the intent of this post was to compare/contrast the two canal side pictures. There is, however, too much of a discrepancy between the quality of the two pics for any real view into those changes. Sorry.



Firstly these are still works in progress closing in on being "done."
On the subject of getting somewhere I feel I have some progress there.
It takes me a while to remember to paint. That is to say I am usually locked into illustration aspects of the picture and not those things that are painting's milieu. I feel I am having success in reworking some of these picture with broader suggestions and implications rather than working on detail. Trying to capture the form through color and light rather than line and literal translation. I certainly have been told to do this and have seen it in paintings. I also have remembered to do it myself but it seems that there is a certain amount of painting that has to happen before this knowledge kicks in. Particularly if there has been a hiatus between works.

In regards to the canal side changes that I am not demonstrating with this post's pics I was trying to undo a flatness i was unhappy about. This was done (intended if not achieved) by changing some color choices. Adding the cadmium yellow, changing the black masses into deep color hues to pull it out to the foreground. I will have to scrutinize this painting some more to see if I succeeded in this. At this writing I would say the changes are an improvement.

Additionally I feel it is important to mention that there has been a sense of doing (as opposes to striving) in this last batch of painting. Is there more to learn and more to improve? Yes, but it does not mean there isn't that satisfaction of growth and increased intention in the painting. I think this might be the nut of my desire to paint. It is something to problem solving or creation that is not so easily found in other activities. I don't think I realized how much I missed it. Hooray for flea market paint.