A Work in Progress....
Most underpaintings I create are nothing recognizable. They are usually just a pigment as a base color to paint on top of. This painting is a very different experience. I found myself so caught up in the beautiful color combinations and movement, that I was finding it more and more difficult to think I would choose to cover up these beautiful colors with wreckage. But I guess this is true to what I felt on Omaha beach. Extravagant beauty with memories of devastation and sorrow. Unfortunately, we humans have repeated this over and over again. The suffering it causes is monumental. I don't have any illusions that the aspect of war is anything but complicated. The challenge for me will be to do it in a way that shows the beauty of the human spirit, the rising above hate and greed, the choice of love and compassion. Choosing light over darkness. Again, complicated. I have a few ideas...but I may let this one sit and start on the next painting rather than push it before I am ready, before I "see" it and have a plan. Pushing it doesn't work, usually. Time to go horizontal, close my eyes and see what comes...which could end up in a nap, but that's okay, too.