These two paintings needed more work. (Doesn’t this look weird??)

One of my drawing students* pointed out that with the yellow only appearing at the lower 1/3 of the painting, the 2 different parts look like 2 different seasons. This is a case of needing to change reality. You can get away with odd things in a photo, but when an artist paints odd things, it looks as if she doesn’t know what she is doing.

Ahem. I may not know what I am doing.

I am so firmly grounded in reality that it brings discomfort to just randomly dab yellow among the evergreen foliage when I know good and well there is no yellow there. Instead, I just did a tiny bit of yellow in the distance at a height that ferns would be, if there were any ferns back there.

Is it enough? More will be revealed when it is dry enough to study without a shine, and dry enough to scan. For some inexplicable reason, I can often see problems in paintings better on my screen than in person. (This is probably the same oddity that prevents me from seeing problems in my pencil drawings until they are matted, framed, and sealed under glass.)

This painting had an unnatural looking curved branch over the road from the left. I erased it, but then it looked unbalanced and even more unnatural.

I added branches, reworked others, and added bark texture to the trees I hadn’t gotten to yet.

It would be a bit of a “Where’s Waldo?” situation to see all the minor changes. Maybe I better stop boring you with all these minor steps until I have decided it is finished.

On my list of paintings to do for the October 2024 solo show at CACHE is an 11×14 of Dry Creek Road. I have these two photos, both of which have elements that are striking. I decided to combine them, just making it up in the most believable manner possible.

This messy stage feels hopeful. I wonder if anyone will like this made up scene. Guessing what might sell, combining that with what really calls out to be painted, deciding the right sizes of canvas to match with the scenes—these all fall under the business of art.

*I sincerely appreciate this sort of input. It helps me and also reassures me that my students are learning (probably know more about art in general than I do) and that they are not afraid to speak the truth.