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Applying the “Be an artist”

I’ve finished off the first of the mystery paintings with the new theme. I’m happy with it and love the message I want to get across through it. So, now I’m ready to do the second painting.

But like all novelists, songwriters, know, its the second (book, or album) that’s the tricky one!!

I had a couple of ideas for that second picture earlier in the week and drew out a couple of pencil sketches to work out the focal point, and the way the eye is lead through the painting. This canvas is a lot smaller than the first one as I want to try different sizes to get the message across, and I know that not everyone likes, or can afford, larger canvas’s.

So, idea in my mind, I kept looking at it and realised that it wasn’t getting the right message across.

I said to my fella that I knew exactly what I wanted to paint, but I hadn’t got a photo to use as my source photo. To which he responded with “You’re an artist, paint it!!” and I smiled and said it wasn’t quite like that, as I needed a photo to work from.

So I had a rethink about it, and realised that the picture I wanted to paint was one I could see in my head, and related more to a place I knew really well, but it was the enhanced version I could see in my head, not the actual version.

I searched through my source photos of the place in question. And found two images. They were taken a few years apart. But… part of one of the images had exactly what I wanted in the bottom left hand corner but the top right part of it wasn’t what I wanted, but in the other photo, the top right part was exactly what I needed, but the bottom left hand corner wasn’t. Ok, then, I’ll put the two correct parts together in the image to make the correct image that I want for the painting. And slightly twist the angle around from the photo, as that makes it a better image, and take out a couple of items in it that I don’t need, and then it will become the image I want it to be!   The best version of how it should look using artistic licence !         I’m being an artist!!