Making Changes

It's always been helpful for me to place a work in progress across the room in one of the living areas. The more I encounter it as I walk through, or just study it as I rest in a chair, the better I can see its flaws.

I realized that I could amplify the sense of light washing in a diagonal across Tending Bar if I changed the bottles on the right side shelf. By painting bottles with white labels, and hitting them directly with an arc of light, I could bring that side of the painting to life, and persuade the viewer's eye to carry across the picture plane instead of being trapped, as it had been, on the left.

Tending Bar, Mt. Washington, © 2017, work in progress (click on image for larger view)

Of course, while I believe that this will make a better painting, it does extend the amount of time I need to finish the piece. That whole repainted area has to dry before I can work the details.