French water garden W.I.P.

20120824-161723.jpg

As much as I love the sweeping vista, I am also very drawn to a view of the intimate. This is the preliminary sketch (on canvas) for a new painting of an old French country farmhouse flanked by lush vegetation and a lovely little water garden.

I painted a plein air piece of this location when I was visiting the Lot Valley village of Frayssinet a few years ago:

"Bassin a Poisson Rouge", Oil on linen, 11x14" ©Jennifer Young

Since the plein air piece is still in my possession, I have the opportunity to use it to inform my larger painting. Here it is just a step or two beyond the color lay-in. I have eliminated the building in the background to simplify and unfiy the painting. The color is off in this pic, and that shadow going across the top is being cast by my easel, (the joys of mobile blogging!) but at least it will give you an idea...

Montalcino Valley (w.i.p. final)

Well I think I am about ready to call this one finished. This painting was a real joy to work on. I loved painting the rolling hills, the atmospheric perspective and the various patchwork of patterns woven together to make up the beautiful countryside that is Tuscany.

"Montalcino Valley" Oil on linen, 24x30" (SOLD) ©Jennifer Young

This painting is of the valley of Montalcino, a small town set in the heart of Tuscany. My vantage is the top of the hill in a vineyard, which I have painted before, a few years ago:

"Piccolomini Vineyard", Oil on linen, 24x30" (SOLD) ©Jennifer Young

 This current painting, however, omits the foreground vineyard entirely and focuses on the valley. We toured and tasted at this vineyard as well, (Ciacci Piccolomini) and sampled the famous Brunello and Rosso wines of this region.

Well, back to reality....The new schedule is working well. Of course I wish I just had one more hour in the day to myself, but I really can't force myself to get up earlier than 5 a.m., so this will do for now. By the time I get moving, dressed and breakfasted, it gives me between two to two and a half hours to paint before the hubbygoes off to work. That's nothing to sneeze at but I have to be pretty focused to make the most of my time.

But I am learning something about process with these constraints. I am trying to get my whole canvas up to the same level of finish in one session--especially at the start--so that when I return to the easel I don't have to spend so much time figuring out where I was and where I'm going next. I also have to paint in thinner layers and buildmore slowly, making sure I don't go too thick too soon, so that I can make needed changes on the way.   So while it's less wet-into-wet, I am trying to appreciate the opportunity I have with a painting that has had a bit of time toset up. This allows me the time to scumble and dry brush here and there, as long as the paint passage isn't already too thick. I'm still learning how I might take advantage of the time I have and how to make the process work even better for me within those constraints, but I feel (at least today) that I am moving in the right direction.

Progress

The Tuscany painting I've been working on of late is almost finished. I had hoped to wrap things up on it before last Friday, when I was scheduled for a minor surgery. Who knew the recovery would feel so major? Any way, I'll be back at it on Monday. In the meantime, here are a couple of progress shots:

The little artist

Still working on the Tuscany landscape, and I have more to report on that shortly. Meanwhile, I thought I'd share another project I've been working on. I've annexed a part of my studio to make a mini studio for my Munchkin (now already 2 years old!) Here's a shot of her creative space:

And here is the artist at work:

Of course I have no illusions that I will be able to do much work of my own right now while she's in there, (she finishes her "masterpieces" at a much faster clip!) but it is fun to invite her into my world.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken

Have you ever had a project that invoked a phrase something like, "I can't wait till this  @!% thing is over!" ? Well, that was my thought every time I showed up at the easel over these past few weeks (WEEKS!) to work on the Venice painting I posted about eons ago in my last blog. Awesome way to inspire creativity, eh? For some reason though, I couldn't let it go. I don't quite know why. It was like slowing down to look at an accident when you really didn't want to . Okay, that's a bit melodramatic.  Maybe more like continuing to watch a bad movie because you'd already invested so much time in it. Makes no sense, but  I guess I kept hoping that by overworking an already bad painting I would somehow be vindicated in the end.

Well, as you can imagine, it did not, in fact, end well. The painting was, I felt, dreadfully bad. And to add insult to injury, I had just spent multiple sessions of my precious new painting schedule (more about that in a minute) completely devoted to trying to fixa mess that I should have trashed after the 2nd session. It was pretty demoralizing and I still don't know why I put myself through it. The only thing I can come up with is that I am incredibly stubborn. And I think when I am tired or stressed, I must be moreso (ask the husband). I think I was out to prove that I could, at long last, finish SOMEthing (the effect of which took me about as far away from creative joy as I care to go.)

So no, I will not be sharing that painting here. It went promptly from the easel  into the trash and I wasn't about to photograph the ghastly thing. But something good has come from it, I think. It taught me more about surrender (a hard lesson I thought I'd "gotten" given the personal challenges of the past couple of years) and it revealed pretty much every one of my artistic weaknesses in a single painting, (now that's an accomplishment! ;) ) so it gave me a very clear picture of what kinds of things I need to seriously work on.

It also made me feel incredibly free, relieved, and happy to be staring at a blank canvas again. And this painting, I will share...as it is it so far after about 2 sessions:

Regarding my new schedule, due to my need for sustained energy to care for a very active toddler at home, I have determined that mornings are by far my best time of day (by nightfall I am pretty much toast). So I have arranged to get up before the rooster crows, and get out in the studio for 2 hours before the husband leaves for work at 8:30 (whereupon I toss off the artist apron, superhero-style, and assume the role of full-on mommy!)

At present, I can only do this 3 days a week due to schedules, etc., but it gives me 6 hours of dedicated painting time, plus maybe a few more (if I play my cards right) on the weekend. Other than the fact that it is very hard  sometimes to be getting up so early, it so far it seems to be working okay. It's nothing like the vast swaths of luxurious time I had before my daughter, but there is a structure in place now, to in the very least, start developing some positive new artistic habits again. Hopefully with regular work habits  it will also mean I can get back to blogging regularly too! But first things first...