Daily Painting - Edinburgh Orange Sunrise

Edinburgh Orange Sunrise - Painting number 44 revisited

Daily Painting - Original Oil Painting on canvas paper 9x6.5 inches.

Previously this painting was just sky with a few made up trees added. I didn't put much thought into the trees, I simply plonked them on as an afterthought. It's those silly little pompom trees which caused me to have to have a week long hair pulling re-think about painting. I had spent hours and hours painting the sky, trying to create the billowing depth in contrast to the wonderful glowing brightness as the sun touched the edges of the clouds and lit them bright orange like a fire in the sky. I was pleased with the results and then I decided I needed to add something in the foreground to give the sky scale and...ruined it.

I have spent so much time studying trees around me, their branch structure and leaves yet I forgot it all and painted the first thing that popped into my head. I think, that precise moment in time my head held the image of something resembling tall rain forest trees, but not even good rain forest trees! What I painted, was what I can only describe as fungus pompoms trailing hair.

I am harsh on myself and horribly self critical when it comes to my work, but I just couldn't understand why I forgot my biggest rule that I never paint anything from my imagination because...I never like what I produce. Never.

I can sketch something and then later paint it and from my memory add detail to it and I'm fine with that, but I can't create an image from scratch and then expect I'm going to like the results.

Perhaps it's just the way my mind works...If I see it, it's real, then no matter how odd it looks it is right, but if it's a creation of my mind then no matter how realistic it looks, it simply isn't real and is therefore not acceptable to me. Does that make any sense? 

Pfffffhhh I sometimes feel I am controlled by my perfectionist self critical mind gone mad and now it's inflicting itself on my ideals of what I see as sense and I'm sat here talking to you in the hope that others understand me and that it's perfectly "normal" to think the way I think. I am an artist...it's my perfectionist mind which drives me to want to improve how I paint with an overwhelming passion. My passion isn't necessarily positive but I don't think all artists' passion and drive is.

I should be grateful that I have drive, but I'm not. It's sometimes not easy to have an artistic mind. I do think there is a part of me which always longs to be normal, to think normal. Ohhhh, some days how I long to be a brain dead barbie doll. 

Hmmmm, I think I may need to work on my concept of normality...LOL.

Anyway, back to today's daily painting revisited...

If you live in Edinburgh in Scotland, or have ever visited you will know that it is jam packed full of people. The buildings are tall and every window you see notes an individual or family lives there. When I decided that I would paint Edinburgh's buildings, I made the decision that I would treat every window as individual.

It would be so easy to see Edinburgh as a mass of geometric blocks, but that's not the way I feel about it. Edinburgh is old and historic and lives and breathes. I have decided to paint at odds to how my mind thinks it should look, I'm going to paint slightly wonky.

If you look very carefully at the buildings in Edinburgh you will see that it's not all straight lines as it appears to be at first. Some buildings in a row may be slightly taller or shorter than their neighbour. Windows aren't always the same or in line. Edinburgh, always has been and always will be ever changing and its buildings reflect this. Perhaps the wonky windows I paint will reflect my desire to ever change, but that fleeting thought is to deep for me to focus on right now. 

It would be much easier and quicker to sketch out buildings using a ruler to line everything up perfectly, but I hope that my mismatch windows are going to make the buildings feel more cosy and homely. A bizarre and twisted form of classical realism to condense the irregularities I see into every building I paint. EEEEK it's not twisted classical realism, I think it's kooky cubism. It sure as heck doesn't look real, I'm not sure what it looks like, apart from... it looks strangely pleasant.

I actually, really do, enjoy looking at this painting now. Adding the buildings has given the non eventful painting of an orange sunrise a place in time and a story. I am always drawn to the church tower. I didn't notice it when I was painting but the door looks slightly ajar. 

Is there a priest praying in the quiet empty calm of the morning? 

Or is a cleaning lady doing a bit of early morning dusting before the hustle and bustle of the day starts? 

Because the colour in the church window reflects the sky it feels warm and the open door makes it feel welcoming, like you could just pop in and light some candles, if you wanted.

This painting is strangely calming and pleasing to look at...for me.

What have I done?

Turned soft.

Elena xxX