Starting all over isn't a bad thing!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone who is celebrating Thanksgiving today is with their loved ones, their immediate families or their extended families.  Celebrating together makes the day even more memorable.  Take pictures, create memories that will last a lifetime and then some.  These are the moments that your family will pass down from generation to generation, telling the stories of the baby putting her hands right into the pumpkin pie and smearing it all over her little face or Uncle Bob telling the same jokes that's he's told at every Thanksgiving that you can remember.  These all become part of your family's history and the holiday just wouldn't be the same without these memories.  Every time you celebrate, you create more memories.  Keep that in mind when silly little things happen.  It doesn't matter if the place mats aren't quite as festive as you had hoped they would be, or if the stuffing has pecans in it instead of walnuts.  Those are trivial details that can be forgotten and trust me, no one is really going to sweat the small details in twenty years time.  Just enjoy being together with the people you care about the most or if you are visiting your newly extended family for the first time, you're helping start up a whole new set of memories, ones that include you as part of this particular family.  Just remember, give thanks that you have such a wonderful group of people with which to celebrate.  That's really all that matters.

Last Sunday, I posted some pictures that I had done on black card stock.  I told you that I wasn't really happy with them and that I would do them again and let you see the results done on a light background.  I've taken the picture of the rabbits, ladybug, and other wildlife watching a tiny faerie sleep snuggled up in a fallen leaf.  I started working on it earlier today and have taken photographs of it in three different stages as it was being painted.  At this point, it's almost done.  Just a few more touches here and there, plus adding the faerie child on top of the leaf and the painting will be done.

I'm much happier with this version.  I've changed the placement of certain elements to balance the canvas.  The colours appear much richer because of starting off with a white background.  Truthfully, it's made a world of difference, even though I haven't gotten to the point of finishing. 

I'm going to post the three photos I've taken of the revised painting and include the original photograph of the coloured pencil version done on the black background.  I'll let you be the judge of which one you prefer and I'd love to hear your opinions as to which you prefer and hopefully, the reason(s) why.

I'm going to continue on with the painting through the day and take a few more photographs as I make my way to the final brush stroke.  But, I wanted to have this post up for the early birds who log in to read new blogs first thing in the morning.  So, here is where I'm leaving it for the next few hours and I'll add to the post as the day progresses and let you know when the painting is well and truly done.  Starting over wasn't a bad thing, but it was the right thing to do.

The first picture just didn't feel right with the colours coming out so muted.  The picture lacked life, it was just flat, no depth or interesting area to look towards.  Now, I feel that the painting has come back to life.  The greens are deep and woodsy like they should be.  The rabbits guarding their little charge have taken on new importance because of the increase in their size and in their placement in the scene.  It's still not a perfect painting, and I doubt that it ever will be.  But, it is a vast improvement over the original one.  I'm looking forward to spending a few more hours on it to complete it and put it up on my gallery wall.  Sometimes just by looking at it for a few days, you discover what it is that is lacking.  That's how I found out what I needed to correct from the first try.  I'll look at this one too once it's done.  Maybe after a few days, I might see somewhere that I should have added something else or maybe I'll think that there's too much going on.  It takes time and distance to form the final opinion.  I'm learning more and more to trust my instinct, but even then, I know that I'm going to have a piece that just doesn't cut it no matter how I try to change or improve it.  The main thing is to try to remain objective in order to see where you derailed or went off the tracks.  We all have days when no matter how hard we try, what we paint just isn't true to ourselves.  That's when starting over isn't such a bad thing, not when it leads us to clarity and understanding what went wrong the first time.  That is artistic growth, a valid part of any journey.

Sincerely,  Rutheemac

P.S  I'd love to hear your comments on the progression of the revised painting!  Please click on comments and a window will open and you can key in your thoughts.  While you're at it, why not sign on as a follower of this blog?  I'd love to see some more faces join our group of followers!  Share with us some of the problems you've encountered with a particular painting and how you remedied them.  Or, is there one painting that you just leave in a corner, turned away so you don't have to look at it?  We're here to help each other, so there's no shame attached to anything.  We are all here for the same reason, to take a journey to learn more about the artistic things that we each do.  Again, comments are welcome, I only ask that you are commenting in a postive way so that we all learn where we ( I ) went wrong.  This is a friendly discussion and I will post all comments whether they are liking what they see or not liking at all what they see.  Just remember to be objective and say what it is that you don't like and why.