Spruce Falls - WIP 1 and 2

I started another Yupo painting today. I am either going to master this stuff or quit reading Sandy Maudlin's blog! That woman just inspires me so with this Yupo. Then, I get started and mine doesn't look anything like hers or anything like I thought it would. Anyway, this is from a reference photo provided by an online Florida friend, Jim Pierce, who took this photo following an arduous (and dangerous) hike to get to this place (I think it is in the Smoky Mountains). I love the punched up colors of the place, and, as always, punched up colors always speak to me in Yupo-ese. So I did no drawing, just quasi-planning and picked up the brush and went for it with the underpainting. After the first WIP photo was taken I was assuming the "what have I done?" attitude. I then got out my little sponge paint roller, dampened it in clean water, and started, gingerly, lifting the paint to form the cascades and waterfall. If you think that painting negatively around objects to create shapes with darker paint is intimidating, try lifting out lighter shapes to form object shapes from the darker surrounding areas - negative lifting? I still have more of this lifting to do, but forced myself to quit and take a better look at what I have going on here. I have figured out that if I open the French doors into my studio and sit in the adjoining family room and look at my paintings on the easel, it gives me a far better perspective on what is needed for them. So, I have been sitting with my feet up, considering and critiquing this painting. Honest, I am not resting, but instead critiquing!


Lots of highlighting and shading needed on the rest of the painting and I don't quite like how the sunlit foliage turned out above the falls, but I think I need to add some purple shapes in there to integrate it with the rest of the painting. We'll have to see what happens when I next pick up a brush. This Yupo stuff is usually just a big experiment for me, so you never know.