This 30″ x 40″ oil was almost among the unfinished paintings recently purged. Instead, things started clicking during yesterday’s session. I will finish it.
The canvas is from a batch of canvases I prepared a year or so ago. All were finished the same way and were the say size–30″ x 40″. The ground on this one is raw umber oil paint, applied quickly.
After an seven-hour session earlier today, I finished the drawing for the 40″ x 50″ Woman in Purple Boots, which can be seen in the background on the left. I was so happy to finally finish the drawing, I immediately took up my palette and started painting. This drawing session was–I think–the sixth. I don’t track drawing sessions in my journal the way I do painting sessions, so I’m guessing.
When I’m tired, subjects seem complex and finding essentials and simplifications–that is, drawing–is difficult. Other times, subjects give up their secrets and fall beneath my pencil, and I’m able to express complicated relationships with a few contour lines. Finding the essentials and simplifications is demanding; an artist needs stamina.