Medium: Oil on Canvas: 99% Palette Knife
Date Completed : 2/3/2019
Title: A Rocky Start (It’s Funny! They’re a wonderful couple/family)
Critical Acclaim – When I gave this painting to James we were on a break during a meeting. We didn’t have much time and when I went to put the top back on the box… he put his hand down so the box couldn’t close. He was, very politely, buying an extra minute to just look at the painting. It was an awesome moment.
I wanted to get back to landscapes. For a long time I wanted to get married on overlook 2 at Great Falls Park in Virginia. And then I saw this picture that James ands friends captured with a drone at his own wedding. I wonder what he was thinking when I first asked if he minded if I painted it.
Lets get to what I learned on this one. The composition is wrong. The happy couple should be towards the bottom left of the canvas. The rocks on the left aren’t interesting. They were more interesting in the original photograph but because I didn’t find them fun to paint that didn’t come through on the canvas. I painted the water more than once and in quite a few varying shades but didn’t think to add the white reflection of the clouds until my teacher suggested it. Rocks are grey and brown and black and rarely is it easy to tell which when looking at a photo.
I loved painting this. I don’t remember having a phase where I just didn’t like it, however, while painting the rocks on the left I did find it difficult just to get started and keep going.