The moment I saw this picture, taken by my friend Nancy Palmer Jones, I said “I want to paint that!” Nancy said, “Go for it!” I want to document the stages, because it’s so heartening to remind myself how the painting went from blank to visual gobbledygook to “hey, that looks like something” to “that’s it!” So I’m putting the original photo at the end of this post, to show the painting getting closer to the model.

The painting is acrylic on paper, about 8×10″. I haven’t taken a painting class since high school, so for even the most basic questions, such as “Should I work from dark to light or light to dark or what?” I have to ask friends or Professor Internet. Professor Internet gave me a fairly consistent answer, but then I forgot what it was, and once I’m painting, I am too impatient and impulsive* to interrupt and go look again. So the first stage turned out to be me laying down blocks of color, mostly midrange, with some darks put in and the paper left blank for the lights. Here it is:

Today I was even more flummoxed about what to do next, feeling a bit like I was just coloring. I did not want to color. But my drawing instincts took over and I found myself doing what I would do with a pencil or charcoal, except with a brush. After today’s hour or so of my getting more specific with the lines, shapes, and colors, the piece kinda sorta looks like the petals of a rose:

I might not get back to it before leaving on our long trip, a week from today. I’ll bring a sketchbook and some pencils, of course, plus a few markers and colored pencils. Painting and other projects will resume when we’re home.

The original:

*Autocorrect tried to change this to “intuitive. ” Aw, thanks, Autocorrect!