Twilight Reverie, 12 inches by 16 inches, pastel on paper

I started this painting back in summer. I like to experiment with creating paintings from an imaginative point of view. 

These experiments often don’t end up as I imagine they will, but with every failure comes new knowledge even though I might not fully appreciate the lesson until much later. Summer twilight is such an enchanting experience; watching as the colors fade and the fireflies come out as the last light of day disappears. That is the magic I hoped to capture in this piece.

I got about probably a little more than 3/4 finished back in July and then I had to put the painting away. I struggled with the risk of going too far with the tone of the woman’s body, which I needed too invent based on her surroundings and the night sky.  And how should that sky look, exactly?Then there was the anatomy of the cat.  Cat faces can be incredibly difficult - I’m not sure why, but they are and I needed to not only render the cat but also give him that feeling of moving through space. Getting the subtleties of tone in the field and sky would also take some fooling around with. There were too many decisions to make all at once  so I stopped. The painting remained on my work table as a constant reminder but as I was happily busy with other projects I didn’t worry about it too much.

I lost some painting time over the past couple of weeks, and with the end of the year looming it seemed like the perfect time to complete this painting that had been waiting for the right moment. The pieces fell into place one by one and I’m happy I took the slow road.

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