go with the Mood

Let the moment grab you

There are moments that are good to grab, and sometimes they grab back. It is too easy to look pass the small glories of everyday life.
There are small garden patches and wild flower areas in my yard. They are there for two reasons , one less to mow (main reason), and two they are kind of pretty. I get up with a coffee in hand each morning and if it isn’t raining just walk around the yard. Each day the patches grow and bloom and I finish my coffee, then go in to deal with the day. Today I set the coffee aside, got out my paints grabbed a few flowers and painted several pictures. Still inspired I got the camera out and took some reference photos. Why today the bug grabbed me, who knows, but I do know it felt good and is something I should do more often.
It is good to let that a nice moment flow over and touch other things. What emotions you are feeling, will spill over to what you are creating at that time.
Also sharing a couple figure paintings that I let a moment of good feeling help me paint. Hope you enjoy the reference photos and the paintings I shared today.
Oh and by the way those big (10 foot tall) flowers are Jerusalem artichokes and I hear you can eat the roots, they are suppose to be like little potatoes.

layers and layers

A habit I start some time back…is to work on more than one picture at a time. For me becoming too focused on one painting, no matter what the media, causes frustration.
It is too easy to over work an area, is one reason. The other is practicality, I hate to waste paint. I keep extra paper and or canvas handy so to there is a place to transfer the excess paint on my brush. In this case I have been working on a large figure painting but had t other smaller canvas boards near by, I used the extra paint to try out related ideas.
In this case it worked well because it made me step back from the large canvas, and yet keep the momentum of painting active.
Hope you enjoy seeing the changes, that of layers of acrylic paint, and the finished work that resulted on the extra canvas.