Moving Forward

I look at this birdbath every day as I walk my dog. I have been wanting to make a painting of it but most of the time I just keep my journal. It seems as if there is not much time for painting anymore.  I worked on an old painting yesterday after someone asked to see some of my work. I liked the drawing but I was not happy with the watercolor treatment. So I repainted it. I like it, but I am unsure as to whether others will see the same thing. A lot of my work is religious, and the painting that I reworked was Psalm 118:24 : Rejoice in the day and be glad in it, for this is the day God has made.  Not everyone believes as I do. I try my  best to try not to offend others with my beliefs. I remember some of the letters that the cartoonist Charles Schulz received. Some people were really upset with his cartoons that used the Bible as subject matter. It was quite a lesson to see that not everyone sees the Bible as a humorous subject. I read a joke the other day from a book of illustrations and basically it said the Bible is one of the very few books without a joke in it. I guess I had never really thought about it. 
     This photo is not especially good but that is the wonderful thing about painting, it removes all the flaws. I ordered an old Photoshop Elements 6 program and a couple of books on how to operate it. My computer is very old, my camera very cheap. I am not sure if this will work. I want to use some of my photos for paintings. We will see how things progress.
     In another life I would have been an art teacher. Terry Miller, the graphite artist,  has a blog named Pencil Shavings and he is always teaching. Stephen Quiller is one of my favorite artists and he is a great teacher as well. The bird bath photo is symmetrical I think, although I photographed the birdbath to the right  of center Symmetry refers to the idea that things are evenly balanced in a picture. Assymetry is a device in a paintings composition that allows for a more pleasing picture. The two sides are not evenly balanced and therefore create a more pleasing picture.
      .Shades of green are primarily the dominant colors in the photo so it would be a painting with an analogous color scheme. Analogous refers to the fact that three colors are adjacent to one another on the color wheel. Green, yellow green and blue green would be analogous colors. If you understand a little bit about color complements, it means that if you mixed the complement of green you would end up with a grey. The complement of green is red. So mixing green and red together you get grey. This would serve as the color of the birdbath. A complementary color arrangement refers to the fact that two colors are opposite one another on a color wheel. Examples are red-green, yellow-purple and blue-orange. These colors complement one another when they are used in a color scheme. When mixed together a neutral is created like grey.  I hope that others find art as interesting as I do. It has always been a source of pleasure.  I hope that this is not boring; Of my  favorite classes in art school, color theory was by far my favorite. Dale