My plan was to hedge against inertia after finishing painting 27 was to start all 3 of the last 3 paintings. I’d already selected the subjects and each of them were going to require a background painted wet on wet. So I could do one, put it to one side to dry, do another and so on. Now, one of the last 3 is going to be a view of Venice and that was the one I was going to paint first. However at the last minute I changed my mind and decided to continue with another painting of the Roosevelt Island aerial tramway.
28 This is not a copy of anyone else’s painting. It shows the previous type of car, which were replaced a couple of years ago, as I was told last year by the driver/operator I spoke to. I’m pleased with this one, even though I didn’t quite finish it yesterday on the 25th to put me back 3 ahead. I did a little finishing off this morning and then picked up the Venice picture and got cracking.
29 I was really delighted with the background I had painted for this painting of Venice the day before. It had dried beautifully. The plan with this one was to fight my natural tendency, and try to stay quite loose an not obsess over detail. I’m quite pleased – I think that I’ve gone some way towards what I was trying to do, and let’s not forget that the challenge is a journey. Above other things it did give me a lot of pleasure painting this too, which is kind of the point.
So here we are – 1 painting left to do, and four days left
in which to do it. I know what I’m going to paint too. I shouldn’t start to
speculate about how I’m going to feel when it’s done until it actually is done –
but I can’t help it. In 2023 I felt that I got better and better as I went on,
and I missed the challenge so much that I did keep going for weeks afterwards. Well,
I certainly feel that 2025 is the best set of watercolours I have ever
produced, and I’ve got better throughout the month again. So – who knows what
might happen?
No comments:
Post a Comment