Here’s something that was knocked out in two sessions, with one added quick one for a correction.  It’s small, only 5″x7″, oil on canvas board.  I Decided one day it was more important that I just paint something, anything at all rather than wait for the perfect subject.  I set up a rock and a small skull I found in southern Utah on a green cloth.  First layer was painted in a tone of raw umber.  I waited for that to dry, then went over it again in color. I tried something a bit different on this one.  For green, my base color was Oxide of Chromium. Usually I would mix dark green from Raw Sienna and a blue.  To take the edge off the green, I used Cadmium Orange, sometimes dabbing pure orange into the background and mixing it on the canvas. 

I’m not overly-enthused as to how it turned out.  It was good practice, but I want to paint the skull again by itself, and probably larger.  One thing I don’t know… would you have known that was a stone on the left if I hadn’t told you?  I’m not sure.  Maybe you would have thought it was a sponge.  Kinda like that line from the Matrix,  where the Oracle tells Neo about the vase he is about to knock over:  ”would you still have broken it if I hadn’t said anything?”  Of course, with my little painting carrying much less import.  I think it’s a problem that all painters face.  How does it look to the casual observer?  Does it look to someone else how it looks to me? When one stares at the same thing for a couple hours, it begins to look different.  It’s like spelling the same word over and over and over.  Pretty soon it makes no sense and you have to back away and read it again later.  I think it’s the same here.  Sometimes you have to finish a painting, and turn it against the wall and not look at it for a couple weeks.  Then turn it around and see what you see.  And then you realize there really is no spoon.  Or something like that.