Frustrated Completion

Abstract Painting 48w x 42h, click to enlarge

Whenever I have a short deadline I push myself hard to meet it. Sometimes I cause myself trouble by not waiting for a layer of paint to dry before working on the next area -- well, I often to do that. I really try to wait, and have been known to use both a hairdryer, and since it's summer, a fan. But then the top layer dries to the touch and fools me into thinking I can paint the next layer. That's only one of the things I did to sabotage myself on this project.

The painting went through several rounds of approvals. I started with the "people" since I didn't know what the client was really looking for. They were approved on the third try, and then I finished the rest of it.

I didn't know how I would create the blueprint of the boat (right side middle) but worked it out by using a light blue transfer paper on an ultramarine ground. It worked perfectly. Until I sprayed it with a matte acrylic sealer, which made all the lines disappear. I redrew it with a light blue Prismacolor (at the very last minute).

My client came over to the studio on Saturday to check progress, and was pleased with the overall painting, but wanted to tweak a few things, which I did. I finished the painting at 10:30 Sat. night. By Sunday morning I didn't even want to look at it, but still tweaked a little more (searching for perfection) before driving it over to my client's house where she jumped in her car to drive to another town, meeting the guy who will turn it into a giclee and get it to a hotel in California by Wednesday. Amazing.

The red line border indicates where the front of the image ends and the outside of that border will be wrapped around the edges of the stretcher bars - since it's being printed on canvas.

Helen's Flowers

I spent a lot of time in Helen's yard when I stayed in Berkeley. It was a lush cacophany of colors and sounds. The flower above was only about 3/8" diameter, a tiny little thing. I'd never seen them before.