I thought I had conquered the Never Ending Painting the last time I posted about it, and I emailed a photo to it’s future owner. He got back to me Monday and said he liked it, but the the front mountain looked a bit yellow and the center bushes were too bright. So bright that your eye was drawn to the bushes, instead of the mountains. I took a look and realized just how right he was. Still, I thought, this is a quick fix! That night I told my husband “I’m going to finish this thing, give me half an hour…you can time me!”
More than an hour later I actually got to the bushes. Those damn mountains drew me in again, screaming “pay attention to us! We aren’t finished yet!” It…just…never…ends.
When my friend and I first discussed this project, he sent me tons of photos, and what drew me to this image was that unlike many of them, it had four components; the sky, the canyon, the river, and the greenery. Yes, the Grand Canyon is amazing and beautiful, but somehow it doesn’t always translate well into photography. It ends up looking like a hunk of rock. And as someone who’s been there, it truly is beautiful. So I suppose I thought by having these other components in the painting I could make it more dynamic. I was reminded by my friend’s complaint, and by my hours of painting last night, that this is a painting about mountains. It’s more fun (and fast) painting sky and rivers, but every painting has a subject and the subject of this painting, the star, if you will, is the canyon. I’m painting it’s portrait, and it simply couldn’t be finished until I stopped grumbling and did my best to capture it.
I hope I’ve finally done that.
