Forest Lightening, 13 x 8 1/2, watercolor, ©2011 Helen Klebesadel

Welcome to day twenty-four in the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project of Alaskan artist  Nikki Kinne and Wisconsin artist Helen Klebesadel.

My 24th painting brings back the surreal.  We finally started to have rain after a long dry spell.  There was pretty amazing lightening that made me want to paint it.  It brought with it a refreshing downpour and an strangely green light that sparked my imagination.

Paint Out July 2006, 11 x 14, watercolor, ©2011 Nikki Kinne

Nikki’s twenty-fourth painting was another rescue.  She took the beginnings of an older plein air painting that had been relegated to the ‘dead zone’ and reconsidered how to approach it.  She says, ” I really, really REALLY wanted to go to photos and finish the painting.” Instead she edited it by cutting it smaller and added value and texture until true depth emerged and her memory of the beauty of the vista was finally achieved.  The painting is in the ‘dead zone’ no more!

Nikki demonstrates here how important it is to put works away that are not working rather than forcing yourself to complete them. Some times you just need to put a painting away until you can see what you actually painted rather what you were trying to achieve.  Once you can see the work clearly you can make decisions about how to complete it.  If you are reluctant to  set a work aside it is possible to better see its composition by holding it up to a mirror.  The compositions should be just as strong in reverse.  If it isn’t working you may be able to see why when its flipped.  If that doesn’t work, put it away and go on to the next painting, pulling it out again in time for reconsideration.

Thank you for enjoying our creative journey with us.

I am now making my daily works for this project available for sale online in my Meylah shop here: http://meylah.com/HelenKle​besadel  I post them each day after they are posted in the blog.