Here's that big painting again. It has changed a fair bit, but I am really struggling with working from photograph rather than life. The apple is from observation (There are apples in my studio?...surprise, right.) The mountain, is not. There just isn't enough information in my Monument Valley photos. I probably just have to blow them up.

I did away with most of the previous composition. It actually looked better as empty negative space rather than purplish mountains in the distance and a fuschia bleeding heart. It just wasn't working. So it's gone. The power of the brush. I still don't know about this whole thing. I just keep showing up.

I reread my first entry concerning this piece, and I am currently feeling completely the opposite. I am not a restrained painter. Trying to press myself into this box is just not going to work. I do best off the cuff, usually the first time, and often quite quickly. Which is beginning to make me think I need to give up the oil paints and return to acrylics. I currently fight with the preceeding layers of paint when I work, but with acrylics the paint dries almost instantaneously allowing me to constantly restate my observations without interference from underlying colors.