When to stop?

Sanctuary

Original oil Painting

by Susan Roux

When do you stop painting?

I'm certain I'm not alone on this subject. How many times have you brought a painting to completion only to feel it was better awhile ago. I'm guilty of it in the studio and notorious for it on location.

Have you ever stopped because someone told you to stop? At that point when you still had a vision to continue, it can be very difficult to put your brush down. What do you do to all those spots you planned on developing further?

I'm here today. Stopping and pondering.

This is the painting I worked on in the Chicken Coop. I took a different approach from the start. Paint the poetry! That's what was in my head (and on the little Monet post-it note in my studio) The scene is from my photo shoot following Stapleton Kearns workshop. That glorious morning when I saw the sun dancing in and out. Armed with my camera, I parked and walked many times while leaving the island.

I'm not always a fan of photos. (sorry my dear husband...) I couldn't wait to paint this lovely scene, but once I looked at my pictures, they hadn't captured anything I remembered. I didn't care. I set out to paint the feeling I had when admiring this waterfront property. How dreamy this floral place was! I could just sit there for hours breathing in the wonderful scents. The various flowers, the salty air...

This precious place slipped my soul away into a relaxing dream.

It was all about the feeling. I used the photo as a reference to put down a basic layout of my composition. Move things, change things. Nothing mattered. I wasn't trying to duplicate the image before me. I have to tell you I had more fun painting this than I have in a long time. It was pure emotion. I thought of my friend Jennifer Wadsworth who always lets the canvas speak to her and direct her. Is this what she's been talking about all this time? I was manipulating the paint to whatever felt right. Choosing colors that projected the feeling I desired. I found myself holding brushes in ways I never have before. It became a tactile experience. I was romancing the canvas.

I think Nora enjoyed watching me as pure emotion led me in its development. By day's end, she told me I was near done. She warmed me about overworking it. That evening, artist friend, Svetlana Beattie visited. She loved the painting. Sign it, she said. Her description of it was moving. With her whole body and up on tiptoes, she demonstrated her feelings towards the tree. Its like a girl, looking out at the sea and leaning towards it. Her arms gracefully out and pointing down, breathing it all in. She's like a ballerina...

Its so interesting to listen to others describe your work. She went on and on about the rhythmic movement and the colors and concluded that any additions would ruin this feeling. She made me listen to Debussy's Reflections in the Water. She said my painting made her feel like that. Everything she said sounded like poetry to me. Had I actually captured that?

So here I am today. I have spots I still intended to develop further. Do I stop? Do I continue? The longer time elapses, the more I seem to overlook the passages that struck me as unfinished. There's no rush. Maybe I should begin another and then see how I feel about this one, remaining at this stage.

Perhaps I'll stop here and consider it an achievement. I can take my next one a step further to see if I can carry the poetry to the very end without loosing it.

Ooooh, so many stimulating thoughts... Its like being in competition with myself. Its a win win situation, or lose lose, depending on how you look at it.

Moon beach

The weather was lovely yesterday, so Mike and I drove to the beach

and landed on the moon...

Well, not really the moon. It just looked like it.

The coast was completely fogged in. The tide was way out and the shapes it left behind were nothing like I've ever experienced. Humps and bumps and crevices as far as the eye could see. Coupled with the lack of detail in the haze, it seemed the perfect setting for a sci-fi movie. It even felt eerie being there...

We could hear the waves crashing, but we couldn't see them. The mysteriousness had us moving forward cautiously. We even turned our heads in slow motion as though fearing what might be creeping behind us...

It was a totally different "beach" experience!

With cameras clicking, we continued on. I kept hoping the sun would burn through the haze. It was obvious it wanted to. At times we could feel warmth on our faces. Little peek-a-boo's of filtered sun lit dots of landscape then disappeared again.

People emerged in and out of the fog.

Sand dunes in Maine... No, wait. Maine doesn't have sand dunes. Cape Cod has sand dunes! The beach had been terribly beaten and broken this past winter. One horrific storm with record high tides swallowed the land. Popham Beach was virtually unrecognizable.

Suddenly, much to my surprise, we came upon purple sand! Its a dream for me. For those of you who don't know me well, I'm a purple freak and here I find purple sand!!! Wow. I was in heaven. How lovely it was. I wanted to take some back with me, but I had nothing to put it in. Why do we go to the beach without a zip-lock bag in our pockets? There are always little treasures we want to gather and take home.

A bit further down the beach, we saw the reason for the purple sand... Trickling from the mainland was a stream of blue and purple carving its way, like the empty branches of a tree, towards the sea. What chemicals are leaching, I wondered? Suddenly the purple sand seemed much less appealing...

We didn't stay there as long as we expected to. Afterwards, Mike and I laughed at the strange experience it was. We did have a nice walk together. Taking photos is one of our great pleasures and Mike was just breaking in his new camera. The foggy conditions created a good opportunity for him to try new buttons. Apparently his new baby has plenty of buttons to push and he always claims he's just a button pusher...

Michael McAllister, seconds before getting his feet wet...