Goopy paint

29 Oct Goopy paint

Ugh.  Patience needed.  Patience lacking.

First I painted out this big canvas, used lots of paint gooped on to give it a cool texture.

Lots of paint gooped on takes a long time to dry.

Dry.

Dry dry dry dry dry dry.

Got impatient and scratched in the heart I was planning.  Come on, come on, dry!!

OK, enough of that. I dragged it off my easel and painted another one out  in white for another painting I was planning.  Goopy paint for texture.

Dry.

You see my problem now, right?  Two wet canvases.  Two wet canvases and a woman with the patience of a shrew.

Drydrydrydrydrydry.

OK OK, moving on.  Swatted some paint on these canvases that will be the underneath for some little paintings.

So what am I at now?  Wet canvases sitting around drying: 8

Finished (or started for that matter) paintings:  0

And then I had to drive my middlest to soccer.

No, actually I got some time to paint the first one for a bit before I left.  In fact it led me astray as I was having so much fun with it that I kept putting off going to get ready and doing sketchy math in my head about how much time there was till I had to leave, until reality stepped in and told me that in fact I had left myself about 20 minutes to shower and get out of here. Ended up burning out the  door dripping wet and with an unclear idea where the field I was headed to was.  Yay GPS.

This painting is a commission and I’m loving it.  It has about 20 layers now I think.  It’s changed since this picture was taken and I’m actually trying to work it back to something like this.  In between it’s gone heavy into orange and then turquoise.  Love acrylics.  They all just add to the luscious texture and little secrets poking and hinting through.

At this point that is one worked over heart, but it seems to be holding its own.  No, no symbolism there.  Nope.

It was one of those soccer trips that feels like it took a whole day.  We left early afternoon, had to drive a long way, didn’t get back until after dark, and the middle was filled up with a very wet, cold game.  Stopped for a bite on the way back so when I walked in I could go right back to painting, and had a good night doing that.  Stayed up late painting till my eldest came in from a Halloween party dressed as Waldo.  Apparently….. and I’m just repeating what I heard…. when you’re dressed like Waldo it gets a little old having people come up and say “I found you!”  I get that.

I’d put away the heart painting for the day and started the other big canvas.  This one, unlike the loose colorful heart, was a pretty structured drawing — even had to figure out a ladder’s changing angles — and I was wanting to use mostly whites and creams and grays.  I wanted to play with the challenge of finding all of my shades from that limited palette.

Usually when I try to paint in the evening I feel like I can’t see properly and am tired, but I always  forget what bliss it is when it all clicks together into a good night of intuitive, easy flowing painting and good music.  Maybe a bit of chair dancing.

I got the one bit of colour on and played a bit with reflecting it around before I had to get to bed.  I think I had better tone down that green just a bit, and I need to refine a fair bit, but I like it so far.  I’d like to get it a bit creamier and warmer.  One thing about painting late is that when I get up in the morning I’m just not sure what I’m going to see.  The light at night is murky and often I’ve gotten up to find I haven’t gotten the colours quite right,  these ones are a bit cool,  but on one excellent morning I found that an area that I had fussed over trying and trying to get right and had given up on for the night was actually solved in the light of morning. That was a spectacular morning.

Itching to get back to them.