A painting in progress

This has been a long time coming. I have had this canvas for about ten years, it's been hanging around, taking up space, constantly being moved somewhere else out of the way. It's really big, and a pain to store - (especially when you demolish your house and go through a major renovation exercise). It's lived in three different houses and a storage container. I'm surprised it's still intact actually after all it's moving around and being shoved under things and behind things. I had been commissioned 10 years ago to create a family painting for someone, she paid for the canvas and all the paints and then her personal circumstances changed resulting in her deciding not to go ahead with it. So I was left with this big beautiful canvas, staring blankly at me, asking to be created into something-or-other. I started once, it was going to be a NZ landscape, not sure if you can see the sketched hills and pohutakawa trees in the bottom right hand corner. And then it was going to be just covered in pohutakawa leaves, because I love pohutakawa leaves and I'm always fascinated by the beautiful colours and patterns that each leaf has. I painted one leaf and then got bored with that, haha! There has been a lot of indecisiveness around this canvas, I think because of it's size it was a little daunting. What if I spend all this time painting this huge thing and hate it and don't actually want to hang it on my wall! You know, don't want to rush into these things and do something you regret! So there you have it - 10 years.

But FINALLY the other week I said to myself - look Hanna! You just gotta start, just do it! Stop fluffing around and put some paint on the white monstrosity!

So, we have a painting in progress.

I decided to leave the hills and the pohutakawa trees, and the pohutakawa leaf to become part of the new painting. I wanted it quite abstract but to have some significance behind it, not just random shapes and colours. So the shapes up the top make up an aerial view of the peninsula where we live.

 

So this is where I'm at so far. It's my painting of home, my country, where I'm from, where I live.

 

 

Whenever I get the paints out it inspires the children to follow suit, and soon there is a flurry of activity, and paint getting everywhere, and my brushes being stolen, and my space being taken! Even the cat decided he needed to be in on the place of activity!

 

 

Last week we hung it unfinished on the wall, just to get it off the floor and out of the way. So now I just need to make sure I follow through and get it finished! - So it doesn't hang unfinished on the wall for another 10 years! - eeeek, no, that will not happen! Please hold me to it!