Catherine Gibbon has me thinking more and more about developing a vision to direct my work. She also suggested that I find a place that I have a strong attachment to and start painting there regularly. I have been pondering both. Last week our class painted in Warren Park which is right at the end of our street and was a childhood haunt. I had an epiphany. I have many fond memories of that park and I love trees with all their distinctive personalities so why not do a series of paintings of trees in Warren Park.
This painting was painted Monday at Princess Point. It was pouring rain when we got there and only three of us stuck around. The rain did stop and we even got moments of sunshine which lit up this sycamore tree in front of a very dark and angry sky. If I had used my brush strokes to show the contours of the ground this would have been much better.
This tree was a huge old willow painted in Catherine's class on Tuesday. It was very cool in hue and the background was very warm. I struggled to make this work to no avail and actually scraped off more paint than I put on this board. I realized with this painting that I need to paint portraits of trees and not just trees. I hear Catherine saying "Don't paint a tree. Paint that tree."
I felt that I need a change so on Wednesday I took my watercolours to the sketch group. The model was Melissa with her three month old daughter Ellie. She was looking down with a look of pure adoration and I wanted to capture that feeling. It has been quite a while since I painted a portrait in watercolour and I wasn't very successful but it was fun I plan on using them more when we have portrait models. Yes the baby's head is much bigger that I made it.
I was always concerned that I would paint too much and burn out but the opposite is proving to be true. I have become addicted to painting.
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