Now this isn't my most productive post ever, but I don't care! Finally, after 2 months of slog, some of it full time, some of it part time, some of it when I've walked away in disgust or tried to go away and come back with fresh eyes, I have finished my first painting of Ankerwycke. Its been in prep since February or March, cost me sleep and sweat and destroyed and rebuilt my confidence a dozen times but, as of a few minutes ago, it's finished.
The painters among you will know that sometimes a painting paints itself, you just have to hang on to one end of the brush, and they're the best. Other paintings fight back, challenging every stroke and every preconception and they can be the best too. This painting did both in different passages and in the process it has pushed me to new heights from a technical point of view. It takes an impossibly complex avenue of trees and makes it simple, a few painterly tree trunks set against a glittering, glowing infinity of summer green, a perfect moment in time made permanent. I can almost hear the leaves rustling. There's no photo yet, that will have to wait for an overcast day with no wind as it's too big to photograph indoors, but right now I don't care, it's over and it was worth every second.
Now, with the aesthetic and the language defined and developed, I can make it some friends. I think they'll be a lot simpler in conception though ;-)
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