Painting as Meditation

I'm getting ready to move, and my house has been full of craziness. To rest my brain from this stress, I've been burying myself in painting.

I'm still painting some bluebonnets. So let me clear the air about a myth...There is a myth that it is illegal to pick bluebonnets, but it is just a myth. Don't believe me, see here. DPS says it is legal, as long as you don't pick so many that it is defacing public property and that you don't trespass onto private property. So, I consider my 4 bluebonnets okay. (P.S. They last a long time. 1 week later, and they are still happy in the pot. They just slowly leach the blue out. Now they are a pale sky blue.)

They look quite dark for bluebonnets, but I painted these from real life, and when I squint down, these are the colors I see. (The picture washes out the lighter portions too much for good balance.)

Also, I worked on a large size ocean abstract that is very calming for me to paint. And I started some more ballerinas. (These are unfinished, but you get the idea.)

This last one is the one I am most proud of how it came out. Painted it from a picture on the Internet, but modified it a bit. (I prefer not facing people, so I keep a look out for backs of people.)

The Problem With Grass

No, the problem with grass is not that it keeps growing, although that is a problem if you have to mow! (I am all about xeriscaping  myself.) The problem I am talking about is painting grass. It can be gosh darn frustrating.

I have found that over time I have often avoided large fields of grass, or even one color of flowers (if we aren't doing at least semi-abstract) because getting the right texture without painting all the leaves has seemed hard. I watch my teacher whip out grass by scrambling her brush around, and it still looks like grass. For me, nope, it tends to look like a mottled background or a child's picture.

Having said all of that, I tackled it in this week's project.

(Please excuse the photo, it wasn't flat when I photographed it.)

One layer in, and I was already happy with my mountains and water. Can't you just see the mist!

It took 2 layers to get the man right. And I love those pine trees on the side of the mountain, a little blue in them really made them work.

But it took about 5 different layers to work on the grass, including one point where I had to leave the room just so I wouldn't have to look at the painting for a few minutes because I was so frustrated. Yes, it was that bad. I began to wish that I had just left the foreground very abstract.

But I didn't.

I kept going, and I have to admit, it turned out alright. I can see that the hill in front is in the foreground, and the rest of the mountain fades back. I would have loved to add a few more pops of color and excitement, but I decided to stop while I was ahead. No use throwing in some new colors and having to start that grass over!