Finally, I finished that large painting of orchids that I started last fall! I was making good progress January-February, but had an unexpected request for several illustrations in March that sent me down a long sidetrack.
Since then, that painting has been hanging around in the background, haunting me like an unquiet ghost. For me, the souls of unfinished projects are terrible creatures, especially when the artwork is so large that I can't conveniently hide it in a drawer to muffle it's insistent demands to "complete me!"
As a bonus, which should completely appease this ghost of projects past, I made a slide show and composed music especially for this artwork in process.
Last summer I was inspired by the gorgeous poppies in the neighborhood. They were just glowing with color and I wanted to bring some of that vivid scarlet intensity into our apartment. I envisioned a painting of these beauties hanging on the wall over the tv.
Plus, I thought the poppies would fit really well into the color scheme of the apartment. This Kandisky print hangs over the dining area.
Colors on the chairs and curtains in the living room.
I also wanted to attempt documenting my whole process of painting the poppies for a video to share. Setting up for recording the video over time was trickier than I thought it would be, but that was nothing compared to all the editing needed after shooting the video. Yikes, I was intimidated! I filed away all that footage and hoped for increased courage and more time to deal with it in the future. Well, surprise, almost a year later I did get the rare gift of more time! To boost my courage, I decided to try editing just the first part, where I mix my colors and choose my palette. I have mentioned before how much I love mixing colors, but it is also a key step that helps me feel less anxious about starting a new painting. It's like I have part of the map to where I am going. I definitely recommend it if you find yourself spinning your wheels and uncertain about where to start.
Some of you kindly asked for more video of my paintings and music after seeing the "Blue Iris". Thank you, your encouragement also helped me face my inner 'fraidy cat. I am pleased that I could figure out how to compress 22 minutes of video footage into 2:36 minutes to share with you.
I WAS doing a good job keeping up with posting the painting process of the Blue Iris painting on facebook, but like all good things, there is going to be a twist somewhere. I think moving to another state counts as a pretty good twist. I finished the painting about two days before we were scheduled to move.
Anyway, the boxes are sort of unpacked and most of the household is running, so I could get back to sharing the painting process in it's entirety. Since I don't want any grief with copyright, I composed some music to go with it too. I was happy with the whole production until I heard it on my computer speakers, it sounds much better with headphones or at least some speakers with some bass!
Merry Christmas! I had a vision of sending a video Christmas card this year. That was the easy part, next came the work of learning how to actually make a song in Garageband. Several hours of reading "Garageband For Dummies" later...I put together my first attempt. Oh, boy, I am so grateful I could re-record my voice and guitar until I was reasonably happy. Meanwhile, I am learning how to run the video recorder and trying to get a night that isn't dumping snow to go to the Christmas Market downtown. Jeff taught me the basics of iMovie, hurrah for Jeff. I am so happy to see it finally all come together and hope you enjoy it. PS. I haven't abandoned painting, I do have a Christmas kitten painting in process to share soon.
