Starting Again!

First day of painting with color

Second day with burnt sienna oil color added

Reference photo

Here I go again, painting yet another flip-flop based on one of my reference photos (shown above). This work is the second in a series of paintings I am doing that portray some of the trash I found washed up on the beach near Hoi An, Vietnam.  

I started this new work by brushing white gesso onto a 55" x 55" piece of 150 lb. watercolor paper and did a first pass of color with thinned ultramarine blue oil paint.  Next day I brushed on (with a huge fun brush!) some burnt sienna.  The dark spots you see in the photos are areas that did not have much gesso and as a result the oil paint soaked more deeply into those places.  I like the added texture!

Yesterday someone remarked that they liked my first flip-flop painting (see my February 24 blog) better when I had barely begun the piece--about the third day through.  Well, I did mention in one of my earlier blogs that I welcome all comments and advice!!! and I do appreciate the thought given to my work.   So I pondered the remarks and ultimately came to the conclusion that I felt the early stages of that piece were too decorative and lacked inventiveness and mystery.  As I continued to add more layers of paint day after day on the first painting, two footprints in the sand quietly appeared--indicating to me a sense of going forward and a desire to overcome tragedy.  Maybe that work ultimately is not as exciting at the end as when I first started it?!  I do not have an answer to that question.
Now I am on a new journey with this second painting of another poor, deserted and trashed flip-flop!  We will see what happens.