Rockin’ It This Mornin’

I love rocks. I get mixed results though when I’m drawing them. Sometimes, they’re barely recognizable for what they are, yet at other times I create fairly-decent looking rocks.

In painting, the results are even more mixed. Sometimes my rocks are looking good; other times they turn into disasters.

I was really pleased last year when I painted this River Rock. I got a bit of depth and dimension to it and even a slight bit of shadow in the water. The color and the surface texture actually make it look like a big rock.

Later, with this painting… well, I didn’t care much for the rest of the scene, but I was happy with the rocky ledge I added.

And in one of my favorite paintings, I liked the rocks in the foreground.

I thought some of these rocks looked really good.

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After those successes, however, my rocks took a definite downhill slide.

I struggled with this rock in one of my my first attempts at a seacape:

It only got worse as I re-did these rocks over and over and never could get them right.

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Since then, I’ve been hesitant to even try painting rocks. But last week my husband and I drove to  Springfield, Missouri, and all along the way I saw such incredible rock formations. I wish I could have taken photographs.

Rocks have been on my mind since then, so this morning I set about putting rocks into a painting I had on my easel. I’m only showing a small part of the canvas because I’ve really ruined the rest of the scene. But, no matter. It gave me a chance to practice painting rocks without worrying too much about the results.

As I’m being more impressionist in my art now, I wanted to play with shapes and colors, and I enjoyed painting these rocks with bits of grass growing around them.

I see potential in these rocks, and I’m excited to paint more. Big rocks, little rocks, and maybe one day I’ll even try rocks in the ocean again. Or, maybe not. Maybe I’ll must keep rockin’ it with my colorful little rocks. For me, they’re stepping stones to better art.