I painted the piece below and was quite happy with it for many reasons. First I wanted a sky that was less saturated hues than I usually do – a more tender, subtle feel. Our skies here in Maine tend to be very showy. But this day was not. It was late fall, mom and I were out on a walk on a ledge that over looks a bit of a valley that fades away to view Mount Desert Island.
This went up on the wall in my ( very quiet) gallery wishing folks could come and see it so I could observe reactions. Well a week after it went up I became unsettled by it. Then I started to not like it. Then I saw it! The humpback whale sailing through the sky. Winnie the Pooh would have seen it right off the bat!
The negative spaces were flat and un dynamic. One wants to be very careful depicting a negative ( or object filled space for that matter) to be a geometric shape unless it is human made of course.
Still in process. See the development of both layers and recasting the negative spaces ( spaces between the clouds)?
Maybe done? I kept the feeling of looming which is what this is about— that heavy cloud bank coming or going.. with out it looking like jaws. I wanted the intricacies the nuances the modeling that clouds have … though this photo does not show them as well as the actual painting. There is also a tremendous amount of color in the clouds.. you might e able to see it if you have a bigger screen.
