I had a zany conversation last night, with my friend Kit, who was on the road to Vermont and I was in Zephyrhills, at home. She has been following my progress on this painting, and many times in the past she has been invaluable as a gentle critical eye for problems in my work. She tried to explain what she saw as a problem with the table, perhaps being flipped up, which is an error in foreshortening....a common problem with artists of all calibers. She couldn't really explain what she saw, and of course didn't have my blog in front of her, so the conversation went back and forth across about 1400 miles which was interrupted by several disconnects due to mountains being in the way, and distant cell phone towers. I could not figure out how to fix what she saw...everything checked out with the photograph, and my measurements were right on. How to deal with this....?
Fortunately, anticipating all sorts of problems with this painting, I made a large scale photograph of it, (using the real flowers) which I transferred to my canvas via an acetate overlay. I knew the cat might mess around with the drapery, and the big problem came when I had to dismantle the still life when tropical storm Debby threatened to flood my house. I got it back, more or less, but still it isn't quite the same with those plastic flowers and a messed up drapery! But I didn't move the table and I was fretting about that perspective. I have had moments when I thought that the table top was flipping up too. I think it was hard to see in my photograph, on this blog, what I had in mind for that area, as I had not worked there at all, and it was pretty foggy. In fact there was hardly any paint there at all, only my initial tonal scumble.
Is it better now, Kit?
Love you and your work Gainor,
ReplyDeleteCody