A Productive Weekend

So yet another weekend has come and gone and I’m excited to say that it was actually quite productive.  As I said before, living and working on a farm is incredibly inspiring for an artist.  I’m surrounded by picture perfect moments that I wish I could capture on canvass all the time.  Except for when I have to change to fly tape, that’s just disgusting…  Anyway, the down side of all that inspiration is all the work it takes to keep it all there in the first place.  I drive home nearly every weekend just so I can put on my work boots and feel like I’ve accomplished something besides staying awake through my entire Art History class.  It’s sometimes really hard to justify sitting in a comfy chair with a cup of coffee and make art when the heifer yards need to be scraped and the milk inspector is due. 

But somehow the stars aligned and I finally sat down and painted for a substantial amount of time this weekend!  I’m a bit ashamed to admit this, but I haven’t worked on anything since I had to vacate my previous painting premises in favor of Christmas cookies and cheese platters.  However, it’s not to say I haven’t touched my painting supplies since then.  I’ve had to move them out of the way a few times…

Anyway, I set up shop out on the porch, got my iTunes going, and finally got to work on a painting that I really, really want to do right.  I took this picture a year ago at my hometown’s Memorial Day service and I really hope to complete it before this year’s.  When I finish it, I will write more about why this is such an important painting to me. 

 For now, we can just talk pure aesthetics.  This has got to be the most challenging piece I’ve worked on to date.  The lighting in the picture is extremely hard to work with.  Those wonderful florescent lights that all elementary school gyms seem to come standard with aren’t exactly ideal, far from it actually.  I really enjoy playing with light and contrast in my work, and I’m struggling to quell the flatness going on at the moment.  There are no shadows to ground the subjects to anything.  I think I just might designate a light source and get a better range of value going.  Painting the ACU pattern is proving to be equally challenging, especially because of the horrible lighting.   After several, aggravating hours and nearly stabbing a brush through the canvass, I realized I needed to first figure out the areas of light and dark. As of now, I thinking ambiguity may be the ticket instead of thinking I’m going to get every, single pixel in there.

I’m also on the fence about the chairs in the foreground.  They take up so much space and are just kind of…there.  However, I’m afraid that if I take them out then I will have to improvise what they’re hiding and it won’t look right.  Lots of perspective to guess at and dink around with behind those chairs…

 Nonetheless, I still have a long ways to go, but it has certainly come a long way.  More to come!