How to Find Your Painting Resolve
I painted a special moment en plein air while on a trip around Bend, Oregon, more than a decade ago. And then it remained on the painting rack in my studio until January 2017. I sensed that while I had something really good, something was amiss or still missing. But what?
The work just wasn’t fully resolved, or finished, to my satisfaction. It languished on the rack for all those years.
An Unresolved Painting, Resolved
Periodically, I will review an unresolved painting. And when I finally looked at A Special Moment again more than 10 years later, I realized immediately what was needed to give it a stronger sense of place. I simply needed to add the flutter of some light green foliage to round out and pull together the composition.
I made a point to use much lighter, brighter yellow-greens, so that they’d stand out in front of the darker, colder green tones of the background stream. Here’s why.
The logs in the stream are placed in front of the rich, cool greens of the background stream. However, to prevent the viewer’s eye from focusing any further on the details of the logs or the stream, I obfuscated and married together the two areas by adding the slight, rhythmical flutter of the bright green foliage (see the painting detail, above). This eliminated the risk of having too much attention on the logs and background stream.
I originally had painted the rocks on the right side of the painting using just a few brisk strokes in the correct value and color. I didn’t want to add too much detail or finish to that secondary area of the painting, which could complicate what I view as the essence of the pastel — the energy and movement of the water.
Because of this, I left that side of the stream as is. And I resolved the area with the suggestion of foliage (see painting detail, below).
Finding Clarity
What was the secret to determining these final touches for A Special Moment? Patience, the clarity of a fresh view and then, once I had clarity, acting immediately on what was needed. With just a few strokes, the painting was resolved.
The nucleus of the painting had been there all along, but without the additional pastel work, I wouldn’t have framed or exhibited it. It would have lingered, unresolved, in my studio.
A Closer Look
Sometimes it’s just as important to understand why some areas of a piece weren’t touched as it is to understand why others were. For example, I elected not to touch the lower left of the painting, which dramatically highlights the watercolor underpainting (see the detail, below), because I didn’t want to hide it under layers of pastel.
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