Adding Folds, Subtracting Radishes

This is where we left off in May:

Art class is getting fun. Remember back in February I was complaining about everything and doubting my ability to put an image on canvas or paper? And then I made myself return because what else could I do for those two hours that my son was in class? And plus, Weezy would have hunted me down and made me come anyway? Here are the links and photos of my art history:
I Had An Excellent Weekend
New
Breakthrough
What It Is And What It Isn't
Goodbye For Now, Still Life
Painting It Red

Weezy gave me permission to begin painting in color. This new stage is exciting and wonderful. My first attempt was the radishes. See that little one down in front all the way to the right? He's the one I was experimenting with, the one I was trying to "finish" when the lady next to me scolded me for getting ahead of myself. See the color of the towel draped over the black tablecloth? Can you see that bright obnoxious color? I hate that. But I don't know how to mix paint. Weezy would say, "Don't say you don't know, say you haven't seen it yet. You will see it, you just have to keep looking." At this stage I hadn't quite seen how to make the color of that ugly towel less obnoxious. However, see how my urn is more shaded in the picture below than the one above? Weezy made me do that and I have to agree, she knows what she's talking about. I decided to take away some radishes.


I took my masterpiece home to show the family and my mother-in-law while she was in town. Then I took it for a tour of its future home. It liked the back porch a lot.


As I glanced at the painting throughout the week, I began to think that I needed to add something to the boring, flat, lefthand corner. Yesterday I painted in some towel folds that didn't really exist in the still life. First, I walked over to the still life and created some towel folds which I believe is illegal, but no one was looking. Surely, no one wants me painting things in that lower left hand corner that I've just made up from my own head.

I began with a dark curved line of burnt umber in the lower left. Snoopy, the lady behind me, crawled up on my left shoulder. Below both eyes, her cheeks are still blue-tinged after a fall she took in the spring. "Nooo," she whined. "You start with the light and ...." I don't even know what she said because as she was hovering and instructing, she was eating a crab sandwich on big, broken, whole grain crackers and breathing it into my painting space. Then she told me the long story of taking her four children to the Louvre years ago and the Mona Lisa and the drawings... ~crab, ~crab, ~crab. I'm trying to be interested and nice, but she's invading my space. And I don't think I know enough to be able to assimilate random comments from another student. Louise's critical comments are so appreciated, but this lady confuses me further. I was taking some mental notes though: Do not talk to others while eating a crab sandwich.

This is what I did yesterday. I took it home again so I could look at it again this week. Already I see the folds I added need adjusting, but on the whole I think I'm heading in the right direction.

I love the progression. It's good to take pictures all along. It teaches me something...not exactly sure what yet, but maybe next painting I'll know a little more.