Today’s Al Fresco Art Club challenge was to paint without using silhouettes. We weren’t allow to use ink lines to show edges. Instead of painting in a comic style with black outlines, I was supposed to use value and color to create a painting with no lines, just lost and found edges. I chose to repaint the cover image of my first book, the Jay Bird That Jumped Down A Chimney.
I didn’t produce a finished image in the one-hour we were allowed for the challenge, but I’m happy with my painting. The picture looks dreamier than my original comic version. I like that. After all, I’m writing fantasies that are inherently dreamy and filled with impossibilities, such as jaybirds that wear glasses, and butterflies that can carry a burro over a 40-foot high, barbed-wire-encrusted border wall. Dreamy is good.
I’ve decide to pursue a painterly style, which mean that I’ll be repainting the images I’ve already completed. This may throw my schedule out of whack, but in return, I’ll have visually more exciting image. I realize that adapting a dreamy, painterly style will require lots of time spent learning how to paint, but I’m excited to learn. I’m going to do the work.
