Back in the Groove

Well, it's been a grueling Holiday Season...I'm happy to say. Having a frame shop, studio and gallery open to the public and doing most of the work myself (since cutting back on staff due to the recession) I was quite busy for awhile there. Consequently, my painting efforts suffered somewhat. The two little oils in the two previous posts below were done before the Christmas rush but I waited until now to offer them up.

Additionally I've been working on a larger 32x40 oil of a scene looking on Bow Lake in Alberta Canada. We stayed at a lodge right on the lake a couple of years ago when a group of us rode our motorcycles into Canada. I did a couple of little watercolor sketches on location there and then used them and some photos to do a 12x16 oil, pictured above.

I am using this oil and a photo to do the larger version. As is often the case however, moving from a small format to a large format doesn't neccessarily result in the same effect. As a result, I am struggling with the new larger version, particularily with the foreground. I am happy with the upper two thirds of the piece and I suppose the easy way out would be to crop most of the foreground off with the knife. I am going to continue to try and resolve the issue first however and save the cropping as a last ditch effort to save the piece. I'll keep you informed as to how it is going. Hopefully it won't be long because I'm getting tired of fooling with this painting.