Friday, October 17, 2014






No road is too long for him who advances slowly and does not hurry, and no attainment is beyond his reach who equips himself with patience to achieve it.

                                                                     Jean de La Bruyere

        I have added some finishing touches to the flowers in an attempt to give them depth.  I am struggling again with the lighting.  I don't want the flowers on the far right to totally disappear but I think they still need to drop back a bit to make them look as if they are going down the side of the pot rather than the front.  This is tricky ~ if they are too dark they will disappear completely.  There is also a problem with the perspective but I might just leave it as it is.  Each painting is a learning experience ~ next one will present its own set of problems.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Lily of the Valley






Creativity is more than just being different.  Anybody can plan weird; that's easy.  What's hard is to be as simple as Bach.  Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
                              
                                                                       Charles Mingus

I have been working on this one for quite awhile ~ not quite finished with it but thought I would post it anyway.  Although the composition may look simple I was working without a photograph or a set-up.  I wanted to keep the number of things in the painting to a minimum, concentrating more on the lighting.  Mingus' was quite right in his definition of creativity.  I have been adding layers of paint and glazes trying to get the feel of the pot's shape and weight on the canvas.  Now I will go back and try to add more depth and shape to the flowers.  Simple, yes, but complicated.  Ying and yang, again.