A half hour between tasks and Nancy to tell me what to do :)

Warm it up, shade the background, blur the background flowers, sharpen the main flower. Stop. 

Sunday is catch-up day this week.
- Painting the sides of finished canvas,
- attaching hardware and frames,
- retouch varnish on some paintings
- repairs, cleaning brushes, etc.

And I finally got to paint a little! Thin transparents on this landscape and trying not to wreck it. 
Note to self: A PanPastel grisaille is not sealed/isolated by spray retouch varnish. It mixes into the oil paints used over it. Do not make this mistake again.
​
Next I am going for a walk while it is still daylight. 

 And how to get them all done? How to actually remember them? How to use bits and pieces of time for the details, saving the hours for painting instead of frittering them away?
​The Todoist app is my solution, I hope. A little wiring here, a little framing there, a little varnishing in between - and there they are - all ready for the show in April without stress.  

I sketched in the outlines with watercolour pencil, then shaded it with PanPastels. Next use a spray retouch varnish to seal the pastel layer and paint the grisaille with shades of grey oil paint. If I am feeling brave, I might start with a transparent red!

I woke up with painting plans already lined up in my brain. Let's see if they work:
- gently blend out the paint ridges on NV/Overpass because I forgot to do it last night;
- start the colour process on the white daisy grisaille by using transparent yellow (leading to green later) and strengthen the whites.
Wow, let's see what happens after lunch!

Well, Nancy came over and detailed me through a couple more not-quite-perfect efforts. Her best tip is "Step away from the painting! Now!"

Then she left me on my own... I followed her suggestion to prune the crowded white daisies and then got my 16x20 of Nicola Lake ready to start tomorrow.

That was a busy day of painting, but in one or two hour blocks, so not stressful.

Make mistakes and correct them, rinse and repeat.
​I think I signed it because I wanted to stop. Maybe when the paint dries, I will have another look.