I’m being productive
Well, I’m being really “productive” (see my last post), but if I keep this up I’ll have no new paintings to show for it.
I’m embarking on a new endeavor next week when I start my painting class at the Art Students League with William Scharf. I explained to Frank O’Cain my current (and continuing) instructor that I wanted to take a longer afternoon class (3.5 hours) and start experimenting with acrylic. Scharf’s class was Frank’s recommendation.
So right now I’m in limbo. I’m excited about the new medium but nervous at the same time. And I’m a real newbie with acrylics. What I know about painting with acrylics is just enough to make me dangerous. But I think it will make some of my attempts to create abstraction and push-pull a little easier (I hope).
In the meantime, being in limbo, I’ve been looking at finished paintings, finding things wrong with them, and fixing them.
Here are two of this week’s fixes:
Nothing major, just varying the reds a little, adding more white in spots, and balancing the vase (the abstract difference at the bottom between the right and left sides wasn’t working.
Again, nothing major, but sliding the right half of the vase up was starting to feel like a gimmick and not a real attempt at abstraction. So I eliminated it.
In both cases, you can still partly see where the bottom of the vase used to be and I left them asymmetrical in any case. Afterall, I’m not trying to paint the vase (or flowers, for that matter) the way it (or they) really looked.
Oh, enough of this “productivity.” I can’t stand it. I’m going to start a new watercolor while I’m waiting for next week to come. In the meantime, I’m putting aside a few of my watercolors that I think would be easier to fix with an opaque medium like acrylic. We’ll see.
To be continued…