But wait! What about Italy?

For those of you who are wondering, yes – I’m still working on the Italian courtyard painting. I took a break to let it dry so I can rework a couple of areas without muddying the surrounding color.

Now I'm ready to get back into it as I wait for the Sahara canvas to dry (see Long Time, No Post April 21 blog entry). First on the agenda is repainting the potted plants and trees. They are standing out too much. I want the painting’s focus to be the laundry hanging out to dry. So I’m going to gray-down the greenery and make its edges more loose and fuzzy. That way your eye will slide over the shrubbery to focus on the blue/white laundry behind it.

The gray-down bit is easy – just add a touch of red to the green, and voila! You have a more neutral green.

The loose and fuzzy is more problematic for me. I have a tendency to (...wait for it...) get caught up in the details. I know how shocking that revelation is for some of you; particularly those that have seen the background houses in my Reykjavik, Iceland painting.

So how to I get over the detail hump? A couple of different ways:

• Work with bigger brushes. They force me to paint in broader strokes.

• Take advantage of my natural near-sightedness. Who knew all of that squinting would come in handy one day? It is difficult to fix the eye on fine detail when all you can see is a big blur of color shapes.

So when the glasses come off, you know I’m about to get all loose and jiggy with the pigment! (Kind of like Clark Kent going into Superman mode, only different. )

For your viewing pleasure, here is a teaser snippet from the Italian courtyard painting. I think it is really going to look nice when I'm finished with it. Stay tuned for progress reports...