Painting in progress

painting in progress, early views, final at bottom:

I found these teddy bears in the free area and they reminded me of my best friend from childhood. I missed her. I put them on my sofa and tried to paint them. I knew a rabbit would end up there sooner or later. As it turns out she wouldn't pose long -- normally she is pretty good but she didn't like being up  on the sofa.

This painting has been sitting in my apartment for months. I worked on it a few times but could not figure out what to do with it. The actual sofa when drawn correctly went completely off the left and bottom side and just looked weird. So I redesigned it. 

I added nubby bits to the teddy bear, worked on pillow and couch, added darks, brightened the rabbit, fixed her eye. I work in thin layers and just keep going over and over areas with more color.

I dulled out shadow on sofa in the foreground, brightened sofa overall.

Added furry carrot and stripes on left. I have stripes on many other paintings. I like them. It flattens out the side of the painting. Originally I was going to cover up the left of the sofa with it. The colors are the same pigments used in the painting but mostly greyed out a lot. They still look super bright. At this point I thought I was done.

I decided the rabbit was too prominent in the last one and the sofa was too dark. Repainted lighter and more yellow (though you can't tell that in the morning light), repainted carrot, got rabbit back on the couch and redrew the leg area, darkened rabbit, lightened darks of rabbit in highlight areas, added shedding and fixed some of the spots.

This is the final painting at this point though it needs a better photo. The rabbit blends in better with the scene, carrot looks better. Yes, it's an odd painting for sure!

You'll be able to see this one in my two fall open studios in November -- one at G2 and one at Hunters Point.