(Ambiguous: unclear or inexact.) There’s this 10×10″ oil painting that has been collecting dust and spider webs in my painting workshop for awhile. I’m unclear as to when I began it.

It just hangs there, and after awhile, I stopped thinking of it as a painting. Instead, it was just another thing that the spiders used for support.

Bottom right – Backcountry Lake. The upper one is on the easels again (because it is a little bit too hard for me), the lower left one is finished. But there hangs Backcountry Lake. This photo was taken in April.

All 4 of these other paintings have sold by now, and there is old Backcountry Lake, just hanging around in March. Is that when I started this?? My dates are inexact.

Now the time has come to finish this painting. There might be a show coming up to celebrate the 125th (or 100th?) anniversary of the beginning of Sequoia National Park. (I’m unsure of the show, and the dates of the anniversary are inexact in my memory.) I think this lake is in Sequoia, but I’m unclear as to which lake it is since I got it from my friend Kenny and now we aren’t in touch. I’m unclear as to why we aren’t, but no longer have a working email for him. So, I’ll finish it and enter it in the show, if the show happens. But I’m not sure there will be a show.

Wow. Lots of ambiguity surrounding this painting!

I redid the sky, and then began working my way down the canvas, working from distant to close, which worked out the same as working top to bottom.

Wowsa! Nothing ambiguous about this now! I’ll tighten up the details on the lower right section, sign it and then paint the edges.

This is unambiguously a clear and exact painting! It was very satisfying to correct the color, heighten the contrasts and tighten up the details. That is the most fun I have had with a painting for a long time.

So there.