A New/Old Composition

Winter is upon us here, which means a drop in temperature of a few degrees, more rain and wind, and little else.  I live on the windward side of Oahu, so we have moisture-laden clouds stacked up against the mountains each morning, and they back out over our beaches. This usually blocks the sunlight considerably. However, one of the bennies I have learned to exploit is that overcast mornings are ideal for beginning new paintings. Since my motto is “Never a wasted day”, out I go.

This is a composition that I first tried a few years ago and  pursued as far as creating a panel to acommodate it, shown here on the easel (it’s 24 x 36″).  Somehow I gave the painting up as too difficult to attempt, the idea went underground, and it wasn’t until a week ago that I happened to be serendipitously walking by, re-experienced the light effect, and rekindled my enthusiasm to try and make this work.  Perhaps three years have passed from that first inspiration until now.

You can’t get any sense of the light I intend the painting to contain from this photo, because this is a totally overcast day and no colors or shadows are in play.   But it’s a good day to start designing the picture outside because:

A. The overcast conditions are consistently, though more dimly,  illuminating the main shapes for a longer period than a sunlit day.

Which means

B. I can spend more time considering the position of  the main shapes because I’m not distracted by color and chasing the light around. Yet.

At one point, a glorious one, the sun broke through for about a minute, and I was treated to the beautiful patterns of light and shade and warm and cool colors that will make this painting work, if I can get them.  Hence the reminder on the bottom of the sketch below, “Light will be everything~”

This is not going to be easy.

Here’s the last of the pencil sketches…