I had to start a new blog because I had to cut and paste how to spell this next piece I’m starting today, a 22 x 30 inch pastel on paper of a photograph my sister-in-law Georgia Stelluto gave me, about six months ago now? from her frequent and beloved travels to Santa Fe. This photo is from Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch, of Pedernal Mountain, at Abiquiu. I think I’m getting that all right, never having been there.
I’ve taped the beautiful, clean, blank cream paper to the board and it feels so fresh. I look at the photo and I simply cannot think that O’Keeffe painted this herself so many times. I have to only look at it myself, and see what is there to me, and then of course, there is what the painting will decide to become in my hands, which is not entirely up to me, right? hee, I don’t think so.
I open the boxes of pastels again and they are dusty and full of magic. I look at the photograph, studying the colors, then to the pastels, trying to match the colors. I will be blending, stretching, adding. I so want to add red, burgundy. I see why she did what she did. It’s all there. But I want to honor what is really there first and foremost, not what I want to stretch it into being, secondly. FUN! Yeah!
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