Sometimes there are poured paintings that just work as soon as I pull off that masking fluid. Sometimes they do not seem to have what it takes for me to be happy.
Far and Beyond is one of those pieces that spoke to me when the idea came to me, spoke to me while I was drawing it out, even spoke to me as I was pouring. But somehow we the message between my brain and the painting got lost in translation. For when I pulled off the masking fluid, it felt all wrong.
As I said, the drawing, the painting of the sky, and the masking started off just fine.
In fact, you can see that in the images of the drawing and the first pour.
Although I was happy with the sky when it was painting, I forgot to photograph it before I masked it out and poured. As I moved forward into the next few pours, my idea was to try to more subtle with my colors and have a softer look to the painting.
There wasn't much to mask after the first pour and I carried on with a couple of more masks and pours, keeping the colors lighter than I usually do. Again, I failed to photograph these steps. Probably because it was either late at night or early in the morning when I started to mask. Believe me, I did not sleep much during the creation of this piece, as I was excited to see it completed.
The following image is after the third pour and I have masked ready for the 4th pour. (Pour #2 and #3 are missing)
At this point I did feel like the mountains needed more blue and that the young woman needed more color. So when I did the next pour, I made sure I just added blue to the mountains and I added a richer red (winsor red) to the red (quinacridone rose) I was already using.
The following is after the 4th pour had dried and I was excited that the horse was such a vibrant red.
Two pours later (yes, that was a total of 6 pours) I was ready for the big reveal.
What a disappointment that was. I felt like I kept the colors too pale in the beginning washes to match the bold colors of the later washes. It felt as if the in-between values were nonexistent. The painting also felt incohesive.
I made the unfortunate mistake of thinking a wash of water over the grasses and flowers would help make it more unified. What a disaster. It only blurred the colors into a big mess. (you would think I would know that this would happen by now, but at times, I still hope it will work)
After realizing my mistake, it was time to pull out the scrub brush, Mr. Clean magic eraser, and more color.
The first thing I did was to put more color into the mountains, especially more blue. Then I softened parts of those distance mountains to make it feel more soft and dream like. Then I added more yellow and blue to the mountain range closest to the girl, as well as in the grasses. I felt like I lost the motion of the tree line moving downwards and fixed that so it would carry the eye into the valley.
Some negative painting was done with the grasses because I had done some horizontal texture on the ground after the first pour, which is I did not care for and found distracting.
Then it was onto the girl. Painting the face helped some but her body still looked flat. I decided to lift some of the really dark dark, which gave her and the horse more depth.
I had just gotten a new blue over the summer and wanted to see if I could use it on the leather. It was the best decision I made on this painting. It is Daniel Smith's electric blue and it made the leather look like it feels like leather! By the end of 2 long days staring at this painting and trying to figure out how to fix it, my eyes were bugging out and I had to call it complete. Plus I was afraid that I was starting to ruin it.
The idea for the painting was to grasp a sense of solitude that being on a high mountain top can give us. It's the good kind of solitude. The quiet, the hush, the meditative state that we can find when we are alone with our thoughts and a faithful companion. It is the escape from the real world as you travel to that distant land of peace and tranquility. A place you want to be.
It is my hope that you feel that with this scene. Do you sense that? Was I able to capture that feeling? Please tell me what you think?
This painting is now on my website. I have entered it into a show. Fingers crossed it gets in.
