Too Many Hooks!



"Conversation"
watercolor, 15" x 22"


The challenge lain was to do a contour drawing of a person or people, over lay a grid pattern from some unrelated source, then paint the piece, being sure to show the influence of the ‘grid’ and to embue the character derived from the drawing. It has been so long ago . . .last Wednesday maybe??? . . .that I have forgotten how much time I have spend on this piece!

What an incredible diversion from everything else in the world!!! This was a great challenge, but there were just to many hooks on which to become snagged . . .and some I had created myself. One of which was to work on a soft, hot pressed paper. Mind you, this paper doesn’t accept color well, so you get what you get, whether or not you intended it to be that way. That was another hook. The other one that I handed myself was that of a value composition . . .to plan it and stick with it . . .(I do that in my work anyway, but it made for another ‘purpose’ on this mission of insanity). Then there was this amazingly complex drawing with waaaay too much in it. (I become very tight when I spend hours on the drawing!)

Having committed my self to complete this project, I had hoped to do so with honor . . .that is with a fine finished piece full of mood, solid composition, evidence of the grid, emotional content . . . . .and, oh yes! Did I mention stunning color, brushwork and incredible examples of radiant transparency? I think I did say ‘insane,’ didn’t I?

So here is a full week of effort. Stiff. Off purpose. Blotchy. And everything else I can dream up and, to summarize: yuch!!

So it is done. I accepted a challenge (mostly to honor Myrna Wacknov.) Maybe I’ll have another attempt later, but first, I have to remove about six of those ridiculous hooks. What was I thinking???!!!

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