Jumping In

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I finally really zeroed in and concentrated on my "N" setup. I was kind of dissatisfied with it, so I dismantled what I had and completely redid it. Then I rearranged it again. And again. I decided to lose the Nesting Ninjas. I also took the Nutmeg out and added Nerve Plant and a Nutcracker (even their shadows will be important.) Also a color picture of a Nimbus cloud on the wall. I took all three Nancy Drew novels that I got at the Goodwill and stacked them up. I took pictures of each new arrangement. I was getting feedback from my daughter, husband, and painting friend, but finally I just decided that "composing by committee" wasn't going to work for me, and I said "Good enough!" and starting getting the drawing committed to the canvas.

First I gridded out my blank canvas into quarters, and quarters again. I have this nifty viewfinder that I recently made, so I looked through it to make sure my painting included all the objects with their correct distances from each other and the sides of the canvas.The camera distorts, so the photo is just a rough guess. Actually looking through the viewfinder is more accurate. Doing it this way just saves me a lot of time.

This is the best, least distorted photo I could get of the composition. I like the way your eye moves all around, following the directions of the various elements. I'm careful not to let objects "kiss" each other, preferring a slight overlap, and I make sure the negative spaces are interesting. I can always change things on the painting as I go, but this is how I like to start. (Doing this takes me back to my childhood, when I loved doing the "Skill-o-grams" in the Dell Variety puzzle books from the grocery store. Did anyone else do those?) I'll use my kneaded eraser to remove unwanted grid lines and drawing lines, to have little charcoal mixing with the paint.

This is what I saw through the viewfinder.

It's all drawn on! Ready to paint.

The flowers are moving around noticeably! Also starting to wilt. I may see if the grocery store still has some, in case I need to switch these out. If so, I'll plant these in the yard. The bulbs are the same size as large daffodil bulbs.

The setup includes a book of Alice Neel paintings, one of my favorite painters. I'll enjoy copying her painting of her granddaughter, which is on the cover. I'll try to find a Navel orange to replace the plastic orange I have in the background when I'm ready to paint it. Tomorrow is painting day! (Today was just too nice to stay indoors and paint! Spring is almost here in the DC area!)

Click on the pictures for a larger view!


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