Aaahh, Friday!  My hubby and I have a regular date for coffee at our local cafe every Friday morning just to talk – away from the kids!  Well, except Justin for now.  Being only 3 months old does have privileges.  One of these days, though, he’ll stay home with everyone else on Fridays, too.

Among other things, we were talking about painting this morning.  I was mentioning to him that boats are easier for me to paint, now.  I’m thinking I just might be ready to attempt a painting of our little sailboat.  I think I’m beginning to understand them a little more, the shape of the hull and the billow of the wind in the sail.  I’m discovering that it takes a certain amount of understanding of your subject in order to paint it believably.  There is more involved in this process than just seeing.

The Dulcinea

For example, I can paint a decent horse.  As I touch highlights to a horse’s breast and flanks with my brush, I can feel my hands running over horsehair and smell that warm horse-in-the-sunshine smell.  I spent many, many hours with my mustang mare, Natasha, when I was a teen.  For a long time, she was my very best friend.  Horses are great listeners when you’re riding alone on old logging roads.  Painting a portrait of a horse, for me, involves more than just reproducing colors and shapes.  ”Understanding” is the closest word I can come up with to describe it, but it seems to be even more than that.

So if it takes understanding to paint something that is believable, the really interesting thing  is how painting so clearly illustrates to me how much I don’t understand.  I spent some time driving around running errands and grocery shopping yesterday and looking at the shapes of fir trees.  Specifically, the shapes of the branches coming toward you.  By the way, artists should not drive because we have a tendency to look at the pretty scenery and forget sometimes to look where we’re going, but that’s another topic, altogether.

There are lots of things out there that I have discovered I don’t understand.  I thought I knew what they looked like – until I tried to paint them.  I don’t understand fir trees.  Is it because I’ve never touched a fir tree?  Hardly.  I’ve just never cared to understand them.  No, I’m not looking to do some kind of Vulcan mind-meld with a tree.  I need to spend some time outside with my sketchpad until I can really paint one that I can believe.  The kind that looks like you could reach out and pluck a needle off of it.  I’m fascinated with the different shades of green and the pattern of light filtering through the branches and down onto the trunk of the tree.  The bark, alone, is fascinating.  Someday, I will paint a good fir tree.