Recalculating

You know how your GPS says, "Recalculating," after you've made a diversion from the original plan? Well, that's how I feel right now. I needed to take the last couple of weeks off from painting to mull over what I've been doing and what changes in direction I want to make next.

One thing is to find some darker interior spaces to use as background for some figures. Also, I want them to make some sort of statement. Another plan is to hike up the realism. I spent yesterday at a superb workshop with notable Pennsylvania painter Erin Anderson and learned a lot; specifically: I'm not paying enough attention to form.

The little painting below is oil on vellum, and it took me several hours to get it to this point. It's not done yet, and after fatigue set in and I started to make mistakes, Erin herself picked up on it to correct some errors and work on the neck.

I'm still mulling things over. There are some things I've been doing that haven't worked for me, and now I have to decide what to do next and how far I want to push myself.