After getting back from my trip to Maui I started the first in a series of scenes with musicians and friends. The “space” in the painting is important, I want to feel like you can be in there, in that room with those people. This one is a memory of a gig in Seattle with Tito, Robert and Neal. The brick wall works, the side room with Tito tuning his 12 string works, but I just can’t get Neal’s face right and he is the largest, most up-front part of the painting. Is it the shadows or did I just not draw it right from the beginning. Now it’s hard to see and fix?
Many times it comes down to some element in a painting that is just weak and I may need to let it sit, come back to it in a few weeks and hope I’ll be able to see what’s wrong from a fresh perspective. At this point my questioning mind comes in and says “why am I doing this?” Just keep going.