When I began this painting, snow was everywhere. Now, there are daffodils blooming outside my door! I haven't been able to get much studio time in lately...life events and such. Hopefully I'll be able to finish this bike soon.
One big decision I had to make...and I suppose time will tell if I made the right one, was to change the color of the bike itself. As artists we all have artistic license...we can move things around, we can alter the reality we see to suit our vision. In this case....the tank of the bike was not a deep blue, but a bright orange! I've had this photo for a few years now....I had wanted to paint it for a long time, but the orange color did throw me. The way I had framed the photo, the orange of the tank only really appeared, for the most part, in the upper right. There weren't really any reflections of the orange tank to speak of in what would be the rest of the painting. Practically all the other reflections were of other bikes. So what to do? I decided to do what would make the better painting, and change the color. The subtle coloring of the rest of the piece would not be compromised by the garish orange that would only have appeared in one corner. And as the painting is going along...I am SO happy I made that decision- watercolor does NOT lend itself to quick and easy color alterations!!
Funny...one of the things that helped me make the decision was listing to film commentaries on DVD's. Listening to a director say..."We moved the tree here"..."We added rain and made it a cloudy day"...all to make the story, and the artist's vision, a better one.
