#61: Road at Dusk

Posted in Landscape, Oil Paintings, PaintingsTagged , , , , , , ,
#61: Road at Dusk (Oil on Canvas Panel)
#61: Road at Dusk (Oil on Canvas Panel)

This is my painting #61. It was based on a photo I snapped early one morning (below). There is some glare in the photo of the painting in the dark areas, which detracts from the overall impression. Try as I may, I could not take a photo of this without some glare!

This painting was a struggle. It is larger than most of my others, and I initially I painted the road more realistically, attempting to mimic the colour of the asphalt surfacing in the photo. I felt that did not work for some reason, and repainted the road later on.

Num-61-Source_FR

The source photo is shown above. I cannot help but think the photo is a more striking, even emotionally charged, image than the painting. This is OK, there will always be another chance to try.

Over the past few weeks, I have slowly been letting my spiritual discipline go – eating too much, spending too much time online, skipping meditation. Anxiety and restlessness building by the day, I need to check and regroup.

I have been fasting today, knuckling down and gently leaning into a more regular meditation schedule. No painting today, but from tomorrow I will check to ensure that I practice painting as a quiet, slow, sacred activity, with the spirit present. Without it – living or painting for others – everything I do will be a failure:

The Failure
I talk to my inner lover, and I say, why such a rush?
We sense that there is some sort of spirit that loves birds and 
animals and ants -
perhaps the same one who gave a radiance to you in your
mother's womb.
Is it logical you would be walking around entirely orphaned now?
The truth is you turned away yourself,
and decided to go into the dark alone.
Now you are tangled up in others, and have forgotten what you once knew,
and that's why everything you do has some weird failure in it.
Kabir, translated by Robert Bly in The Soul is Here for its Own Joy

Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope you find moments of happiness and contentment amidst the pain and uncertainty of the world.

14 thoughts on “#61: Road at Dusk”

  2. Oh…..you confirmed within me that need to feed my spiritual life….too concerned and too obsessive about painting lately. Thank you, I needed to hear that for myself as well. You will re-charge and come back to the painting and try to recapture it, I am sure.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks Margaret! Yes, too obsesed with painting (and in my case – results) is not a good thing at all. It is a gift, a chance to celebrate, after all, is it not? Good luck to you for finding that centre again. Time to work a bit on your intuitive painting again?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. so true! it is a fine balance and I have been working at it. It is a gift and a chance to stay on this side on that celebration! exactly….I have been feeling since last week that I need to work on my intuitive painting….thank you 🙂

        Like

      2. Thanks, I have a real dilemma: when I make the images too big, it does not look right somehow. It is like you would push your face right against the painting. Whereas making it smaller, I feel, gives it the same visual effect on a screen as you would when viewing a framed painting across a room.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. I think it’s very different from the photo and much more emotional. The painting greatly alters and simplifies the scene and seems to get at something essential. In the photograph the different things are separated from each other distinctly — the road, the shoulder, the near trees, the far trees, the distant clouds from the nearby asphalt — but in your painting the things merge into each other and there’s more a sense of a kind of natural unity.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks so much Aletha! I have to say that painting is growing on me. I know I should keep my darks “thin” but it is quite difficult when the dark areas are so dominant in size. I keep learning though!

      Like

      Reply

      1. The idea that darks “should” be thin comes from a particular art historical and stylistic point of view. Why not make a dark color solid — even impastoed? How you apply paint depends entirely on what effects you’re striving to achieve. It’s just paint.

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment