Daily Painting Practice- Gout and about with marigolds

 The Gout by James Gillray ( 1799)
( that's  my foot )

I thought  I had a good excuse for not posting  the past  2 weeks. I had a bout with gout. That's right gout . You know the  disease of kings. ( Ben Franklin, Alexander the Great had it)  It  is excruciating on the worse days...  just plain painful on the good days. And to make matters worse  you need to  keep your foot above your waist or  it explodes. ( at least it feels like it would)  When I finally  could sit up  I tried to paint  with my  foot up.

After two weeks I'm almost back to normal. I have to keep my complaining and whining to a minimum because I researched other artists that had gout. Michelangelo ( that explains why he painted that little chapel on his back), da Vinci, Corot, and PeterPaul Reubens (he died from it). So much for excuses on how I can't get any paintings done.

  Here's the  companion piece to last  week's  Marigolds.

I like to start these with a dark underpainting to capture the light effects quickly.

I go right into the color but I try to keep it thin or I know I will be scraping it off sooner than later.

More Marigolds - Work in progress

8"x8"

oil on panel

I wonder if Michelangelo ever said "That's enough, I need to put my foot up"... probably not, but I bet it sounds good in Italian.