Sunrise Rising Up

yet to be titled Sunrise over Iowa St, 36x36, oil on canvas

After weeks of being unable to work on this painting due to a shoulder injury and then on top of it not being able to keep up with my blog due to my laptop being infected with nasty virus's, we are back in business. My shoulder still cannot take a full day of painting but it seems to be getting better slowly with time. My laptop, after 3 visits to the shop, I pray, is finally clean. One thing I can say though, I am getting used to not feeling drawn to be on the computer since it wasn't available, and I have grown to like it!

I had posted this painting in progress a few weeks ago when it was first started and then I began another, smaller piece in between. That waiting time was good for this painting because when I got back to it, I was ready and it just flowed. The movement and orchestration of the medium value of the trees is critical to the light. This piece is still a work in progress but great headway was made and I wanted to share it. I don't know if I will get to finishing it up this weekend and did not want to wait any longer to post the progress. Where it still needs to go is neither the signs marching up the street to the stop signs, nor the tree structures within the right-hand side mix of leaves and branches, have been completed, along with a few other minor details.

I took this painting in to work this week to see it in another light and it is the best received piece I have brought in to date. Uplifting to all who viewed it. What more could an artist ask? Art should uplift the soul of the viewer. Now to come up with an appropriate title.

Iowa Street Sunrise looking West

Iowa Street Sunrise, 36x36, oil on canvas_Work in Progress

This is one of my latest projects started a few weekends ago. I did not make any progress on it at all since then. My shoulder is giving me fits and it is too painful to paint on this large of a canvas. I know when I get back to it it will flow!I have been studying it and figuring how I want it to read.

The top photo would be the end of the second day after I got things figured out and loosely blocked in and have started to lay some paint down. The bottom photo is after the third day. Wanting to weave the color and the textures of the trees and have then the halo of light create a silhouette is where I was headed. I decided to start on the periphery with the trees coming down from each corner and working my way down each side. Then I switched to the  middle and made the light halo more solid and the blue sky a bit darker. Last I started to work my way out from the rich color of light down the center of the street and that is where I got stuck. I made it up the left side just fine but on my way to the right I started to get lost in the trees and going into too much detail. I had to stop to begin fresh another day.