Oops!

I really had fun doing this painting. It was a spur-of-the-moment piece of art that came about when I discovered a small canvas lurking in my art room. Several family members bought art supplies for me last Christmas — including a few canvases. Since I wasn’t doing any oil painting at the time, I set them aside and more or less forgot about them.

When I came across the canvases yesterday, I was immediately inspired to do a painting, even though it was getting late and I’d already done one painting earlier in the morning. Oh, well. Why not do another?

I had ideas spinning through my head. How about a stormy sky? No phthalo blues for me! I grabbed a midnight black and set about creating the scene I envisioned in my head. I added in a bit of alizarin crimson, and I was very pleased with the skies I painted.

Next, I added a few mountains, and I actually liked how they turned out. I moved on to create a few pine trees at the left side. Yes! For the first time, I painted pine trees that I really, really liked!

Oh, but the scene needed balance. Something on the right. How about another evergreen? Right idea, wrong execution. Like the magical tree in The Nutcracker ballet, this one kept growing and growing.

Oops!

Of course, I did wipe the tree off in an attempt to make it a bit more proportionally correct, but it was too late for that. Even my second attempt ended up over-sized. My husband came home while I was trying to figure out what to do with my gigantic tree, so I left it a little unfinished and let out a big sigh.

I really loved this painting…until the giant tree happened.

I’m adding more composition classes to my art study schedule. Maybe that will help me avoid too many more “oopsie” moments.

Tags: mistakes, Proportions