Spent the morning tediously adding 32 album artwork images to Society6. One plus with Society6 vs. RedBubble (apart from the fast that the latter may delete you without warning or explanation and have no way of contacting them for support or comment, unlike Society6 who are easy to contact and respond promptly) is the wall art made from huge wooden squares which work particularly well with large format square album art.
In the afternoon I started painting the new Sappho painting. It's unusual for me to start painting in an afternoon, but in this case it's much better to split the work between two days rather than rush it in one as before, and better to start with a half day for the sky.
Many aspects of this are already much better, although the placement of the gulls was better in the first I think.
I listened to three Beethoven piano sonatas as I painted, and practised piano a little too, and wrote a little phrase myself. In many of his latter half sonatas, it's clear that he aims to impress in the last movement, and the other movements play on the themes in the last, building towards it, with some probably back and forth during composing. He was a master of structure, form, and variations perhaps because he was (usually) weak on melody. Like adding narrative to a painting, adding a melody may not add or enhance emotion; melody adds something else.
