It was *so* exciting to begin my eighth painting in the Flash Mob Series. The title is "Loosen Up," and at the outset I felt I was really gliding along as I laid in the composition with the watercolour brush-pen shown above. I could have gone on forever, drawing "wet" on my new Arches paper that immediately slurped the water away from the coloured guidelines.
Oddly, though, after working over old paintings for almost the whole past year, I'd forgotten some old hard-learned lessons. The first of those -- remembered belatedly -- was, "Don't get too dark too fast." It's easier to add progressively darker tones than it is to lighten up a dark patch. The background was darker than I'd intended, and I realized there was no going back.
I'd forgotten another lesson, too, in those months of working on top of old paint. The dynamics of working on unprimed white paper are entirely different, and the almost instant absorption can result in patchy expanses that need to be corrected later. You'll see some here:
If you want to see the whole progression -- including the usual drama of heads, hands, feet getting larger or smaller -- the whole sequence is here.
Things were pretty much corrected in the final painting -- the streakiness that shows is thanks to my wonderful camera picking up a kind of pentimento.
As it turned out, this is one of my favourites in the series -- because what I like best about the Flash Mobs, after the figures themselves, is the spaces between:--
I have #9 on the easel now and #10 in the planning stage. After that, I can relax, loosen up, and dream about my next moves. I have about eight possibilities floating around in my head right now.
Children also have natural dignity and curiosity. Then they grow up!
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