Upstairs

I like to think of myself as a spontaneous kind of guy.  As a matter of fact, every third Tuesday of the month, like clockwork, I set aside the time between 6 and 7:15pm to be spontaneous.  I spend forty-seven minutes in acts of spontaneity, and then clean up for twenty-three.  So I always enjoy having a painting idea come to me out of the blue, too.

The painting above, Upstairs, shows my beautiful partner Ellen seated at the top of the stairs as the setting sun casts golden light up the stairwell.  I knew I had to paint it from the moment I saw it.  This was another of those paintings I did half from life, and half from photos.  I drew the scene from life knowing how photos screw up tight spaces.  I waited for the sun to start setting so I could get the colors down.  I posed Ellen and drew her in, but then used a photo I took at the same time to paint from.  I did fake the shoes completely, though.  They were never there.  That just shows what a wild, spontaneous guy I am. 

You wouldn't think it would matter because I was working indoors, but the hardest part of this was waiting for decent weather so I could paint.  It's been an absolutely freaking miserable spring here in Maine.  It seems that for every nice day we get, we pay for it with three days of nasty, cold rain.  (Heck, we've got the wood stove fired up today on this wet, frigid day!)  Anyway, for this picture, I needed the sun to shine-- at least for a few minutes before it set.  I eventually got enough sun to finish it up.  What I'm really waiting for is for spring to finally get here, so maybe I can get outside to do some more painting.

So there you have it, my latest effort.  Another in a series of paintings I call "Paintings from around the house, because it's too miserable to get outdoors, and besides gas is four bucks a gallon, so why drive anywhere?". 

I may need to shorten that, but it came to me spontaneously...

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