Yes, I know it's boring, but here's more about this most recent picture

I post stuff in this blog more or less as a journal I can look back on. Clearly, very few people even know it exists, let alone visit it. I don't do any social media stuff, so I've put nothing on the internet that would drive traffic to this blog. I don't particularly care if anyone sees it. That's why I'm not very apologetic about how tiresome and self-centered most of these blog entries might seem to anyone else. But, anyway, I'm sorry if it's boring, but a lot of this stuff involves aspects of painting that I need to work out, and this is sort of the equivalent of talking it all out.

Now, here, I'll again post the photo of this "diagonal blossom" I've started, and then I'll explain a little about it.

You should be able to see the reference lines I drew in. I always do that when I start a blossom picture, just to establish the intersection of vertical and horizontal (in regular pictures) and to get the courses going in a more or less straight direction.

In this picture, the reference lines are at a 45 degree angle to the edges of the sheet of Bristol board. There are several reasons for that.

First, I didn't want a typical vertical/horizontal array of cells. I've done enough of that for now, and I have other blossom pictures in progress that use that alignment.

Second, changing the orientation seems to me to have the potential for lessening how apparent it is when the courses of cells begin to waver from a true line. If you hold up any of my other blossoms and look down the rows or columns, you begin to see that there are very few that are straight. It might not be as apparent when the pictures are viewed head-on, but it's something I see while I'm working on them.

Finally, and most important, I learned a lot from doing that "canted cascade" picture. Working on an angle forced me to concentrate like mad. I became disoriented at times while working on it. I was occasionally confused as to which way to turn the paper to put in the next form. It was frustrating, almost aggravating, but I knew early in the process that it was going to yield something special. It's basically a way of removing my own expectations and preconceptions and infusing the process with something in the nature of an exploration. Once I got used to it, it turned making the picture into something I looked forward to.

With almost every blossom picture I've done there has come a time when I lay the picture on the floor and look at it from each corner diagonally toward the opposite corner. It's usually at that time that I most fully comprehend the rhythms created by the shading of the cells. I'm optimistic that making this new picture on a diagonal to start with will yield an unexpected set of rhythms.

Unlike the last blossom picture I did, this one will likely have shifts in the shading, but it will be quite a while until I get to the point where I start the shift. I just hope it will be apparent to me when that time comes. I'm apprehensive that the diagonal framework will confound me and make me tentative. But, heck, I'm going to probably live with this picture for months while it's in progress, so I'm not too worried right now about making any hasty decisions.

The only thing I'm certain of at this point is this: If I make any serious errors while doing this picture I can always abandon it, cut it into pieces, and make cards out of it to give to people. Small consolation if that ever happens, but it's better than nothing.