#30paintingsin30days #30/30challenge #bevsbites #sunset

Here’s is today’s unfinished Sunset painting to go with this unfinished blog post… At the moment, I don’t know where I took the original photo that I am working from. Perhaps it was right here in New York. I’ll let you know when I find out.

When I use the word unfinished to describe the state of this painting, it is in a completely different context than before. While I said that other paintings feel like they are not complete, this one truly isn’t. I didn’t get a chance to work on it much today, as the rather crude handling of paint indicates. But I did get a chance to pack about 25 brushes away that I never use, which will make it easier to find the brushes that I like.

Nor will I get to work on this Wednesday. (How does a haircut, nutritionist appointment, and the Merry Widow HD movie courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera sound to you?). That’s why I am switching to a drawing so I’ll have something ready to post on Leslie’s site for Day 21. Then I can still go to sleep at a reasonable hour this week (if you call midnight reasonable). Drawings are much quicker for me (no cleanup too), and I might just be able to finish it.

I plan on picking up this painting again in a few days to refine it, including the handling of the paint itself, the reflecting edges of the clouds, and the addition of light yellow-orange clouds.

Based on this photo, the purple should be dulled down with it’s complementary color (in this case orange). Switching to a less violet purple should help too (one that doesn’t remind me of the purple people eater song).  The light of day will give me truer picture of what’s going on here.

To be continued. I hope you’ll come back to see the final painting.

This little sunset was a joy to paint. So 13 turned out to be a lucky number today.

This view brought back happy memories from a few years ago. When Bonnie graduated Marist college, I asked her what she wanted for a present. Her answer was a family vacation, and she chose Paris.

When we arrived in Paris, we had a few hours of daylight left and walked over to the Champs-Élysées. We ate dinner in a cute outdoor cafe and went to the Arc de Triomphe, where this stunning sunset awaited us. In the distance, you can see a large cluster of government buildings with the iconic rectangle (which I will look up in my tour guide since I can’t find it on the internet). I took a series of photos that night.

I started this landscape by using a light wash of yellow ochre for the underpainting, followed by a bare bones sketch of the essential compositional elements (the opposite of what I did yesterday with the orchids). Then I went for the oils and laid in the largest areas of colors.

I applied a few layers of paint to the clouds and ended up wiping them off. There was too much paint on my brush for the light, airy feeling that I envisioned for this image. In fact, when I wiped off the paint, I got some wonderful streaks of sunlight coming through from the underpainting, which I left in. Sometimes good things happen accidentally and you have to take advantage of these situations – which I did.

It became apparent early on that this painting was going to work. I just had to relax, turn on some music (Aaron Copland fit today’s theme), enjoy myself, and put in the effort. All of which I did. Quite a different experience from Day 12.

I won’t take you through a litany of changes I would make if I had another day – because I realize I probably wouldn’t make them. Instead, I would simply paint another version. And that is progress, with a capital “P”.

Ideally, I would like to use a similar yellow/orange palette tomorrow since I got used to the nuances of working with these colors and am on a roll. I have an idea for a Day 14, but maybe I don’t want to spoil the surprise…

You’ll just have to come back for the next installment.