The shaded canal, the antique barge moored alongside, pretty little bridge with a lock just beyond...and waterlillies in the foreground for good measure. What's a painter to do with this over abundance of the picturesque? Run screaming in the opposite direction, turn my back to it all? but I've been spinning around all morning, the sun is getting high in the sky...and here is a shady, quiet corner, it's just so....so...taboo. What a weird dilemma. Yes, it is cliche piled on cliche, but I've been known to paint a light house or two. And in the end, it's all about the sincerity of the moment, and who says painting reflections in the water, not to mention those waterlillies, is easy? So I sit down to the challenge, and spent couple of hours completely engrossed in this scene. The result? Well, I don't sit in judgement. I just do the best I can do at the moment: sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's not; sometimes it flows off the brush, sometimes it's kicking and screaming all the way. Here it is:
and an earlier incarnation:
Here's the view from the opposite end. It really was a beautiful spot. Why does painting sometimes have to be so complicated and angst-ridden, when there is simple beauty in the world, just waiting there for my pleasure to behold, if only my chattering mind would let me. Like I said, kicking and screaming.
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