back in the saddle

Finally...finally today I had the stamina to get in a full day of painting. I don't know how long this is for other artists, but for me its around four hours. That sounds kind of wimpy when I say it out loud, don't tell my parents.

So, I'm pleased to report that I was able to reconnoiter my 'fig tree confidential' diptych to my satisfaction. As I mentioned in my last post, I thought I was finished with the diptych on Friday but was not happy with the results.

The layering process that Genna and I use doesn't allow for a lot of 'adjustments'. If I lay down an image and it doesn't work, I generally have to re-gesso the canvas and start over. Foggy as I was, I didn't think to photograph my 'disappointment diptych', so here's the verbal gist: I booh-boohed the composition by making up a bunch of shapes in the left hand piece to mirror the forms in the right hand corner of the right hand panel. It was super boring. The beauty of the inspiration photo was in the dramatic amorphous mass of leaves behind the couples.

I considered scrapping the left hand panel altogether and finishing off the right one as an independent work, but Genna suggested 're-underpainting' the background of the left piece and going again. So that's what I did. Here it is re-underpainted,

And here it is completely finished:

I hope I've done Mr. Buchanan's original image justice. My homage is "Fig Tree Diptych", two panels each 36" square oil on linen framed in black, $3500.