Saturday, January 14, 2017

Girl Dancing, Mardi Gras

© Robin Edmundson, 'Girl dancing, Mardi Gras', watercolor, 10 x 8 inches
For several weeks, I've been working on a painting for a Mardi Gras exhibit in February in Bloomington, Indiana.   We could paint anything having remotely to do with Mardi Gras.  

I like a challenge and decided that as much as I love painting barns, I would do something more traditionally Mardi Gras-y. You know,  New Orleans, King's cakes, parades, confetti, masks, purple/gold/green, etc.   I did a few pinterest searches for inspiration and did a few sketches and then decided I should put actual humans in the painting, too.

Then human-s became one human.   And then she decided to dance.   In the meantime I painted nine whole studies.  Nine.  Niiiiiiine.

After #7 I realized that I was basically painting the same thing over and over and over.

#einstein'sdefinitionofinsanity

So I really reached and painted #8 and #9 with different colors and light.   It. Was. Awesome.  And I realized a bunch of stuff.  Mostly I realized that my original colors were, in fact, the right ones, but I needed to treat them differently.  Soooo - I did a very nice drawing and held my breath and painted #10.   And it worked.  It's not a masterpiece, but it's done.  This painting will work very nicely for the show.

The Mardi Gras show will be at The Vault on 6th St. beginning Feb 3 through March 29, 2017 in conjuction with the Week of Chocolate.  There will be an opening on Feb 3, coordinated with the First Friday art scene in downtown Bloomington every month.   I hope you can come see it.

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