I’m still working on my Day 26 painting, Christo in Central Park.
Maybe I was overconfident after yesterday’s terrific success, 1959 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer (Day 25). And perhaps I was impatient to get onto the next painting.
Last night, I developed a good plan for my Day 26 painting of Christo’s Gates in Central Park, featuring the King Jagiello Monument which is prominently located at the top of a hill near Belvedere Castle. Sketch, put in a light blue acrylic underpainting, lay some of the the dark brown foreground in, and let it dry overnight before putting in all those tiny little branches and shrubbery.
So far, so good, so I thought.
This morning I took up where I left off, but didn’t stick to the plan, making several unworkable mistakes – at least for now. Right away I realized two things needed to be corrected: the blue underpainting was too light and the dark brown should have been black.
Instead of darkening the blue background first, I impulsively got out my black paint (which takes a while to dry) and repainted some of the trees. Then I worked on the sky, which is now too blue, and ended up nicking the wet black oil paint in a few spots.
After I put in some of the foreground color (too much of it, nicking another black tree along the way), I decided that I liked this painting better without the color, but I can’t take it out yet since the strong, wet colors are bleeding into each other.
So it’s time to stop, let this dry, regroup and move on. Next week, I’ll come back to this after the Challenge is over. Right now I am thinking this would make a great sketch.
Hope you stop by to see the final work.