ROPES!

For the past few weeks I have been in the watercolor class again. It is really nice when I can go several weeks in a row. I can begin to work on a project and get follow through advice from the class. My first week there was playful warm up exercises - trying to loosen us up. Then we worked on some flowers that were blooming at the time. That is always frustrating for me - I get lost in all the petals!

Last week I found out that this class will be showing at a gallery on the Annapolis waterfront later in the summer . . . so we are now working on paintings to go in the show. Annapolis waterfront - yeah, that means boats, marine 'stuff' and bay scenes. I couldn't get very excited about any of that until I looked through my picture file and found some pictures that I had taken when some tall-ship type boat had been in the St Michaels harbor a few years ago. She was tied up at the maritime museum and had welcomed locals aboard. I had taken lots of pictures that day and had never looked at them again.

I found a picture of lots of ropes . . .hmmm. Last October I challenged myself by painting Buoy #1. (See Blogs Oct 26 & 29, 2013) I remember thinking at the time that doing the ropes was interesting. Once I figured out that each rope is just a series of 's' shapes, it was great fun putting in the shading and some color here and there. So, why not try lots of ropes? I'm just multiplying the fun, right? (Remember, I actually wrote the word 'fun.')

I spent one whole class on my sketch which turned out to be way out of proportion. I took it home and used that sketch to practice painting the ropes. Then I redrew the whole thing.

Lots of ropes. huh?

In class, my teacher had suggested that it would be a great study in negative painting, so I began by putting in the background. The picture had all sorts of boat things in the background, but I simplified it to be just color.

Now that's kinda cool. Then . . .I started painting the ropes. I began on the right side of the painting (because I am left handed, I work right to left). It was not long before I realized that I had chosen something that was not what I bargained for.  Remember my saying that we had done an exercise to loosen us up? It was not this! What was I thinking? This was going to take me all summer . . .

I had gotten this far - I was not going to give up. Well, what I discovered, is that the more I painted, the more I was enjoying it. It really did become fun. Unlike painting flowers and getting lost in the petals, I was figuring out where the ropes went and putting in knots.

I could probably pick at it all day, but decided to stick it in a mat for now and just look at it for the next few days before I frame it for the show.

You are not going to believe this . . .I am now looking for other ways I can paint ropes - coiled on a piling, around a cleat, lying on a dock . . . more to come.