Spent the weekend struggling with photoshop and signing up for online print services. You will soon be able to get prints of my art work at an affordable price. But first I have to scan the pieces in, in sections because my scanner is the size of cereal box and then "stitch" them together. That's the part that's proving difficult. It's a learning curve, figuring out how masks, clipping layers work. I'm disapointed in the delay, but staying positive. It's that or the day job!

Toggle City

I just figured out how to toggle back and forth between my personal Facebook which has a different name than mine and my Facebook, Victoria Haskell, the artist. Phew! This shouldn't have been this hard. Now to start "liking" things as me, the artist and get some positive marketing vibe going.

Four days left to my vaca week. I'm excited about doing some painting again. I have some new ideas to work out. I usually just rough things out and go for it, but I think I want to do some drawings first this time, work out the masses, the lights and darks, the aura of the piece a bit ahead of time. I also want to eliminate some pitfalls and errors before I start painting. The problem with a planned approach is that it can end up feeling like a straight jacket, like paint by number forced labor. Can't have that. We'll see how I make out.

Blue Water

I have this week off from work, so I am painting and working on a variety of projects. I don't know if you can see a whole lot of difference between this and my last post, but I did re-paint the water and it is an improvement. I added more color to the dark reflections so they are not as flat and I softened those edges so they are not as jarring. Sharp edges can be distracting, they make lines for the eye to follow. I want the attention on the boats and the water.

I'm still debating whether to add the reflection of clouds or not. It could make the painting too busy,  but the symbolism of the clouds passing and the empty boats is hard to resist. I may try to make the cloud colors kind of grey and make the edges very fuzzy, so the clouds stay put in the water. I can always paint them out, as long as I scrape down some of the thickening layers so those pesky brushstrokes don't show as much. If I don't include the clouds, or at least some water ripples, there is the danger that the water could be too flat and look like a blue parking lot.

Every part of a painting project has risk associated with it. We must always make a decision about whether to go forward and try something risky and stretch a little, or play it safe. It may be a technique we are perfecting or a design element that we are struggling with. In this picture, what initially attracted me was the water, I need to keep that focus there without confusing the structure of the whole. That is the challenge.