"Geraniums" Update (Stage 4)

Another update of my current project, "Geraniums," oil on canvas, 30"x36."

I went very dark in the shadows with a combination of alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue, almost black. I'll lighten this area a bit, gradually, as needed, but with this dark established, I'll be able to better judge the rest of the value relationships throughout the painting.

Stay tuned for more updates. I expect to be working on this painting for many weeks, although it may go faster than I anticipate.

And now for something completely different...a poem that I find very inspiring....

OPPORTUNITY

by Walter Malone (1866-1915)

They do me wrong who say I come no more
When once I knock and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door
And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win.

Wail not for precious chances passed away!
Weep not for golden ages on the wane!
Each night I burn the records of the day--
At sunrise every soul is born again!

Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast?
Dost reel from righteous Retribution's blow?
Then turn from blotted archives of the past
And find the future's pages white as snow.

Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell;
Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven;
Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.

Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped,
To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb;
My judgments seal the dead past with its dead,
But never bind a moment yet to come.

Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep;
I lend my arm to all who say "I can!"
No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep
But yet might rise and be again a man!

"Happiness: the full use of your powers along lines of excellence."
- John F. Kennedy

My website: Seebach Fine Art