"Incredible Shelter"

(sold)

"A rock provides incredible shelter." The symbolism of a rock is replete throughout scripture and came to my mind as I painted these two huge boulders, one in front of the other. The small tree seems to be perfectly secure.

Painting this was scary! Rocks are a hugh challenge in values and angles. I was not pleased with it while it was in my hand, up close and personal, but when I sat it across the room, it came to life. It feels very abstract, but that's a quality I'm going for so I was altogether happy about that.

Just a few words about keeping your paints wet from one day to the next. I use a fairly good sized glass palette which, to me, is the absolute perfect surface for everything art related. To keep the paint from drying out, I went on the hunt for an oversized cake pan with a cover. The palette fits in there perfectly and I also place a wet sponge in there to keep the humidity high.

On the painting side of things, I know artists who try to get their colors to match the subject perfectly and can do a very good job, but my desire is to paint the image so that it looks like the reference, but then veer off into my "colorist" mode. My desire is to go even more abstract, but that is easier said than done. 

A good exercise is to see how few strokes can be used to paint a given thing. When I can paint anything with three strokes of the palette knife, I will be a happy camper. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.