A mysterious thing happened the other day - drops of water starting falling from the sky, soaking into the ground and forming puddles on the streets. I thought - I remember something like this from long, long ago. I think it's called "rain." And rain it did - for the first time in I can't remember how long. I had to walk to pick up my take-out dinner from a nearby restaurant and in order to get there had to cross a section of the LA River. Usually the water meanders slowly, finding its course around patches of mud and plant life, but Friday evening the water was rushing like I'd never seen. It was a strange sensation standing on the bridge, watching the water rushing out from under. And later that evening I even heard some thunder, which clapped loudly enough to set off several car alarms. I think I've only heard thunder maybe three times in these six years that we've lived in LA. Being a California native himself and very much unaccustomed to any weather other than sunny, the cat did not like any of this at all...
So after setting it aside in great frustration sometime ago, I picked up "The Woodland Post" again and finished it off:
This one was a bitter battle to the end - a good deal of repainting elements that just weren't working. I think part of the problem I had initially was that I fell in love with the color of the sloppy digital color-study I painted for it, knowing full well that I can't possibly reproduce the exact color from the study in a traditional medium. I'm pretty content with the color overall, but there are all kinds of other problems with it. For example, the rather ambiguous lighting and I've never been happy with the leaves on the trees. Regardless, it's a personal piece that I'm ready to be done with - I need to move on to something else! Well, for those that are interested, there are prints at my
Shop.
Update 5/13/11: This painting is now available for purchase
here in my
Etsy shop.
This one was a bitter battle to the end - a good deal of repainting elements that just weren't working. I think part of the problem I had initially was that I fell in love with the color of the sloppy digital color-study I painted for it, knowing full well that I can't possibly reproduce the exact color from the study in a traditional medium. I'm pretty content with the color overall, but there are all kinds of other problems with it. For example, the rather ambiguous lighting and I've never been happy with the leaves on the trees. Regardless, it's a personal piece that I'm ready to be done with - I need to move on to something else! Well, for those that are interested, there are prints at my Shop.
2 comments:
Wonderful Phyllis! You are one of the best digital colourers I've ever seen. Your work is so warm. I love the profusion of mailboxes. Do you know the artist Harry Rountree? He was a great animal artist too, from the time of Arthur Rackham.
Hi Eric,
Thanks! This one is actually a traditional piece - I'm really pretty inept with digital media. I did do a color-study for it in Photoshop. I should post it - pretty colors, but a terrible mess otherwise! I just looked up some Harry Rountree art. I know the name, but am not really familiar with his work. Thanks for mentioning him - I'll have to go and look at more of his work. Glad you like this piece!!
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