Progress and ssergorP

Just a short post today to give an update on my painting progress. I'm curently working on four small bird paintings, two I'm more pleased with than the other two. Its funny because even though I haven't painted in about four years, as I've got back into it the old things I used to like and dislike have come flooding back. For example I always used to paint portraits and make the backgrounds very flat, usually one colour or perhaps a couple of subtle similar shades fading into each other. Even though the current paintings are kind of to get back into it, I didn't think properly about what I wanted to do in the backgrounds as the birds are against various backgrounds in the photos I'm using. I realised I needed to properly think about this as in the two first paintings I actually did some kind of background detail which I wasn't happy with, but with the later two I decided to use flat colour with just a very subtle amount of gradient, mostly around the subject to create a bit of an illusion of three dimension, but as I said, very subtle. I find I am still very much in favour of painting subtle and plain backgrounds to give the subject all the attention and to create some kind of atmosphere through the unrealism of it.
Here are the two I'm more pleased with after their first coat stage.



And as for the backwards progress, I went to our little craft group lastnight where my friend Sally had made the most lovely quilt, her first one (and I forgot to take my camera so will have to try and get a shot of it next time) and I had planned to make some real progress on my MIL's socks... I'd done seven rounds after picking up the stitches down the sides of the heel and then realised I had one two many stitches on one side. I knew they had been right in the rifst place so ended spending the whole evening unknitting my sock. Grrrr I need them finished soon :( I hope to finish at least one WIP by the end of next week.

Goodbye xxx