Sometimes having less time to work means you get more done. Today I had about 90 mins of time that I could devote to my artwork so I decided to finish the underdrawing to a picture about being tired and old. It's based on snails, the gentle spiral of the shell seemed to exactly indicate time fading away, and the slow sluggish motion of the soft body seemed to indicate lethargy.
The fundamental scene is a sunset, a giant mountain that is also a snail sailing off into a yellow sky. I wanted to further push home the tiredness aspect by hanging a figure over the horn of the snail, so I added one today. This in some ways gets in the way of the purity and simplicity of the image, but it does help the meaning. Each picture has beauty, meaning and feeling, and increasing one can decrease another. It's a balance. Generally, I think sacrificing a little purity to make a stronger feeling or meaning is a good thing. It depends on the object of the painting.
This picture is a small simple one that I'll trace in January for painting later in 2010.
