Painting Projects

After I finished the floor in the upstairs hall, I decided to continue the pattern on the chest of drawers. Without any planning, I taped off some squares and started in. Well, true to form, I didn't think ahead and painted the corners of each drawer some indeterminate size. After they were done, I realized I had done it in such a way that the pattern would not work as a checkerboard. Also, when I removed the masking tape, a lot of the original paint flaked off. I might as well have eyeballed the squares, as I did on the floor. Attempts to use tools like that to make things perfect always end up badly for me.

Once I saw what a problem I now have, I abandoned the project temporarily. The open can of paint still sits on the top of the bureau........I wonder for how long.

Yesterday at Wednesday art group I began this painting from another of Toni's pictures of Chile. I mapped it out with acrylic and then finished it today with oil. I like it, though I'm not sure it wasn't better before. Sydney and Lisa insisted yesterday that I leave it alone. The roughness of it was so much like the paintings of other artists who stop once they have a suggestion of the subject. Other things besides the image then become center stage and even an untrained eye is forced to look at patterns and colors and textures and composition, even if they don't know it (or even like it, for that matter). I love that kind of work, but somehow I can't do it. I have to torture brush marks until they look like a picture of what they represent more than what they are (marks). I am getting better, though, and managed to let this one remain somewhat unmolested. The two aspects of the brush marks are both evident, with a little too big a nod toward disguising themselves.

Well, better luck next time.