And Now... Norway!

I wasn't initially planning on painting anything today. After breakfast, I jumped right into doing some writing and composing, and I thought that was going to be it.

While taking some time to relax, I came across a photograph of a Norwegian stave church on Instagram, and the mood of the picture, taken during a cloudy day, intrigued me. I was then inspired to attempt this picture with acrylics, with some minor extensions of my own to create a little story around it for myself.

I've added a little character in the lower left part of the piece -- as I am wont to do, as one would notice in some of my pieces.

Here is a picture of me in the middle of the process which I took for my friend to see:

'Stavkirke' in progress

Blocking out the colours was overall alright; I kind of knew what I wanted to go for in terms of the general mood. Putting in the details, on the other hand, took a frightful amount of work, especially the stave church itself. I had to pull out one reference photo from Google as a guide. The one on Instagram that was my inspiration got lost after my feed refreshed.

Once that details of the stave church were done, I was quite relieved and the rest started filling in by themselves around it.

Looking at it now, the painting looked very ominous, like something out of a horror story. And I am quite proud of it.

So here is 'Stavkirke'. 

'Stavkirke', Acrylic on paper, 17cm x 10.5cm

My Next Acrylic Piece & Glenorchy Marshes

Today I was in the mood for more acrylic painting. And the first thing that popped into my head was the image of the Glenorchy boathouse in New Zealand. I had thought initially that I would be painting that, and I searched through my old stash of New Zealand pictures from 2019. Here is the picture:

Glenorchy Boathouse

However, I had second thoughts. Not really sure why; either a lack of confidence or just suddenly not feeling it. But I was still looking to paint some landscape.

Then I found this simple photograph:

Marshes of Glenorchy

Simple to break down and study, and a perfect subject for a sketchbook piece. It was quite fun to paint this. Mostly going between blues and browns, with lots of whites for the highlights and a bit of blacks here and there for shadows. The grass in the marshes took the longest to get right, because I didn't quite know what worked best there. I had to play around a little bit, and after several repaint efforts, I finally got to what I think looks alright.

So, here is the final piece:

'Glenorchy Marshes', Acrylic On Paper, 17cm x 10.5cm

#19

The bitter taste

Left behind

Even after an apology

Lingers.

It lingers because I know

It was my fault

And it disgusts me to think

That I am

Unconsciously

Capable 

Of malice

Of manipulation

Of corruption. 

Even after an apology

I still feel it

The disgust

Because now

I think:

"I could be terrible

And not know it."

And it frightens me.

It frightens me. 

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Photo by Andrew Neel on Pexels.com