7:58 – I was thinking about the painting I’m currently working on yesterday. It’s a very challenging subject to paint because the color values (light-dark) are very close together. And so far, in terms of details, I have paid a lot of attention to the tree stump with the moss itself, but less to the ground around it. That makes it a bit difficult to read. Yesterday I thought it would be good to paint the branches that lie around on the ground around as well, but I’m afraid that will only cause confusion. So, I’m going to remove those first. This is a bit at odds with how I normally work, but since the stump and the moss need to be the focus, I just have to remove what distracts. Bend reality a little. And now, time to set up the easel!
8:50 – It was restless in the forest for a moment. Just now, cries could be heard in the air that sounded like a buzzard. They sounded a bit like alarm calls. At the same time, I heard animals walking through the bushes in my direction. So I already had my camera in hand. They were roe deer, but perhaps they had seen me, because they veered off and ran away. Still, shortly after that, another animal came through the bushes. But I didn’t see it. It could also have been a wolf causing the commotion. An exciting thought…
11:30 – I continued working on the lichen painting all morning. And I approached it a bit like a kind of sky: how does one cloud relate to another? Here too, how do the moss patches relate to each other? Is it darker, warmer, colder? Furthermore, I tried to sense what the painting needs. This sounds a bit vague, but where do I go more detailed or, conversely, more atmospheric? Because the subject is quite abstract, I started approaching it that way at a certain point.
I’m letting it sink in for a bit now, but it was certainly an interesting experiment!