Getting into the painting ZONE

I do love being a shape painter. This one of the ways I remember  Judy Morris describing herself  last year when I took her class at the Kanuga Watermedia Workshops in North Carolina.  It’s been nearly a full year since that class, with not that much painting going on until just recently.  But as I look at the past half dozen paintings (at least, the keepers), I can now see just how much I got from that workshop.   It has just taken a while for it to sink in.

In this painting of strands and flowers of burros tail,  I’m enjoying the heck out of painting shapes - hope you can tell.   I’ve done a lot of prep work, including a complete drawing, and some work pre-identifying my palette of only three or four colors.  Once that’s done, it’s so much fun to just go into the “zone” and fill in the shapes. And does time ever fly once I start.

This method is so much fun for me, in fact, that as I start each new painting, it encourages me to remind myself, “I’m a shape painter”.  So, again, I do more homework - planning - to start with, but then can just relax into the painting.

Stay tuned to see how this painting turned out, and find out what other Judy Morris techniques I’ve adopted  and incorporated in it!