'Over The Fence'
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T his large 30"x36" canvas had been sitting here trying to catch my attention for a while now, but I ignored it and worked on the tiny 5"x7" 'Tomorrow' painting. But it was calling my name and so I started it 'blind' , no idea what to paint, just playing with colors.

1. As long as the canvas remains pristine and white and empty, it "wins" by intimation. Well I couldn't have that so I squirted some apple green oil paint at it. Nya nya.	2. Just by having color on there, the ideas started to flow. Suddenly I "saw" the interior of a train, so I painted a red aisle carpet, and some passengers sitting along a window. Will come back and revisit this idea some day.
3. But for now this wasn't it, so I painted a woman with folded arms. (Me thinking?)	4. Ok so none of that was working for me, none of the ideas were catching, so I re-covered the canvas in red and yellow, just following the paint, not overly thinking at all.
5. Suddenly a lone figure in a 'prostitution' pose, leaned up against some white, possibly a wall....	6. As I rounded out this figure, she was less prostitute and more just a woman leaning, looking. I washed away some of the white "wall" to reveal the apple green from earlier. Midway through this idea, I started to paint an audience with their arms up, very basic idea, to accomodate a fleeting thought that this could be a stage.
7. Forgot that idea, and focussed on the woman again and turned the "wall" into a man. Look at me playing out my inner conflicts on canvas! Weeeeeeee! *cough*	8. Anyway, it sat like this for a day or so and damn if it was grabbing me, so I did the radical next step of turning the entire canvas vertically and re-started it. This hurt-looking creature just poured out, and behind her another woman, looking like she's judging her.
9. Another woman joined the painting, taking it deeper into pain, really. I just couldn't love this though, it just wasn't catching on and grabbing me. I mean, I see meaning in it, but I didn't feel inspired to finish it, and had no way to surround it, so I released it altogether. So under what ultimately tuns into a whimsical painting, lies a heavy underpainting.	10. Turned the canvas horizontally again, and look who popped in! Reminiscent of my painting 'Oh Dear', this depicts another woman suddenly heaven-bound, this time while gossiping over the fence with her neighbor.
11. *Poof* I was on purpose now! This is the point in a painting where I get excited. I'm out of the woods, I have a better sense of where the paint is taking me, and I feel some excitement. All these things have been missing until now with this canvas, and all are clues that I'm working on a keeper. While it took several days to plow through, once I reached this stage, I painted steadily and finished it in a day, another clue. I play with the fence color, work on the women, and add some houses in the background.	12. I detail the woman in the red dress and try to adjust the heaven-bound woman. Still playing with the fence. The blue behind the floating woman was initially meant to be sky but now with the houses in the background, I need to change it.
13. So with yellow and green, I turn it into more lawn. Painted a white picket fence and planted some flowers along it. Started detailing the houses in the background, thinking at first I was going to add blue awning. Also softened the red dress woman's legs and repositioned the floating woman's legs. Brightened her coffee cup too.	14. Here I added a sidewalk and a path.
15. Started another path from the blue house, and detailed everything: Added shutters and window boxes, a hanging plant, some bushes, etc. Oh, and the red dress woman finally got a face!	16. Continued with details, played up the walk ways and the sidewalk, changed the floating woman's hair color because it blended into her wings too much, added a little circle under her, meant to be shadow, to show she was off the ground. Added detail to the background, took the painting outside in the sunshine and took a good clear shot of it and voila! Click on it :)

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