First Painting in 15 Years!

Yep, that's right- first painting in almost 15 years. After visiting my old college friends back in October I realized two things, 1. I don't want to be 65 and look back at my life and say, "you had a gift and you wasted it", and 2. I really do have a God given gift. I knew when I helped Brooke do her first painting that it would fire me up- which it did.

So what's it like to paint again? Great! I was very pleased with the result considering what I was wanting to acchomplish.

1- didn't want to do the super detailed stuff. 2- want it to look painted- so I didn't "blend" any paint, all the colors were premixed and laid on wet-on-wet. 3- I painted about half the size of my old paintings.

And I learned that I made several mistakes.

1- I didn't do a super tight detailed drawing. 2- I didn't do a monotone underpainting but a flat wash. 3- I didn't lay in a flat base color.

Those three mistakes cost me. In the past I always did a really tight drawing, and in painting flowers and leaves- you need a tight drawing- plus the underpainting is to help you to see where to apply what colors. In the end I had to go back and outline each leaf and stalk. I also laid in the underpainting to define depth so I would know where each color went.

In the end I realized I can do a much better job- but ironically the frist three steps are identical to doing a high-end detailed painting. The only real difference is how you apply paint and brush sizes.

But the best thing of all was that this painting was done from start to finish in nine days. NINE DAYS! In the past the super detailed version would take months. It's good to be back.