Here we are halfway through a painting. This is a quirky bedroom in a guest house in Edinburgh. We'd just got up and I liked the light, the sheets and the setting so I took a reference photo. It felt like a 'moment' where something has happened and there is a story to tell. In truth what had happened was a ridiculous noise coming from next door and we'd been driven out of bed by the racket!
I felt that I wanted to use the old-fashioned colour palette, emphasise the light and remove some of the detail which just created noise. This is also my biggest painting I have done to date.
I got to the point above and I felt that the painting had potential. There is an atmosphere and the colour scheme is nice. I like the looseness of the painting and it does convey a moment in time to me. I did my usual thing of standing it against the wall in the lounge and in the study and just looked at it for a week.
What happens next is the most difficult part for me. I had momentum to get this far. The colours were mixed and ready on my palette. I had a vision of what the painting was going to be. And then I stopped for thought. One outcome is that by restarting painting I destroy everything I like about it so far. Sitting and looking at the painting does balance the scorecard by drawing out the negatives and helps hatch a plan to improve the painting. Here are my musings:
There are some clear perspective errors or things that may be correct but confuse the viewer. What stands out to me is that the slightly angled wall with the fireplace doesn't read very well. Somewhere the angles are wrong and my first thought was it was the line of the mantlepiece. I also noticed that the angle of the bed behind the pillows is clearly wrong and needs correcting.
In a similar way there are some lines which need looking at - the perpendicular line of the edge of the curtain and the edge of the painting on the right. I need to decide whether to correct or not. I'm in danger of slipping in to too much detail if I'm not careful.
I need to decide what to do with the artwork on the right. I'd started to introduce more, stronger colours in getting this far and I wanted to carry on doing that but didn't want to make the painting draw the eye away from the unmade bed.
I clearly need to do something with the stuff on the mantelpiece without overdoing it. If they are going to be there I need to give them form and make them sit right.
The bed sheets, duvet and the coverlet need some work to add form and depth. They are not going to be Renaissance ermine in any way - due to talent and the nature of acrylics - but I want them to read correctly with shadow and highlights. I want the crisp white duvet to sing out, I want the right hand pillow to separate from the sheet and the other pillow and I want the folded over sides to the duvet to be believable. I want to use blues, beige and purple to separate the areas a little and then some glazes to add some more subtle shadow.
Finally, and the biggest decision, is that I want the window to be open. Its a small point but it adds to the story I think.
What I've just described is a typical thinking process. Some things stand out the more I look, others are ideas that come as I form the final image but this halfway stage is so important for me and lifts the end result enormously. There is jeopardy too because I think through the HOW I'm going to execute what I have planned and find a way to do that which the materials and my abilities will allow. I also think about ways of mitigating the risk of ruining the image - the sequence of doing things, changing colours in stages or layers rather than going all in, areas to use masking tape etc.
After all that I have arrived at this point and I'm quite pleased with the result. Now we turn to the question which I think all artists struggle with. Am I finished? Have I already gone too far?
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