Into the Boatyard-22x28

ok here it is done. wow i had fun on this big one. never thought i'd hear that coming out of my mouth. if youve read this blog any amount of time or know my work well enough you know i never liked doing big paintings. i thought they were scary and that i tended to paint them too tight.

my switch in working method and the confidence i have from painting thousands of small ones have led me to the point where i want to explore the large canvas. dont want to lose my dreamy, edited style but do want to play with the shapes more in a larger format.

today i painted another hour and a half on this one lightening the dirt road and giving it half a dozen temperature shifts. lightened the sky and calmed the paint stroke down to push it into the distance. then i darkened the tree to the right quite a bit and lightened the land mass way in the back keeping the nice lavender color i love which matches the shadow side of the boat.

its funny how painting (and i guess everything in life) is a matter of changing the way you think about things. was watching a show about a guy who was supposed to go to the edge of space in a balloon and then parachute back to earth. to get to that altitude he had to wear a pressurized space suit. well when he got into it for the first time the smell freaked him out and he thought of the suit as the "enemy" and that it would lead to his death. so he wouldnt train with it on because it reminded him of death. he eventually quit the project and they hired another test pilot in his place. a few months later he was meditating and he came to the realization that the edge of space was very hostile. that led him to think of the suit as his "friend" and the only way to survive in that hostile environment. his whole thinking changed and he went back and asked for his job back. they put him in the suit and he did great. the situation didnt change one iota but the way he saw it did and allowed him to do it!

to me that was a huge lesson that will apply to my not wanting to paint big paintings, and can be applied to whatever it is that is holding you  back from being happy and/or successful. nine times out of ten the obstacle isnt going to change so change the way you view that obstacle.