Untitled

Here is another photo of the New Painting after a little more work.

New painting 16" x 12"

Well, I unexpectedly had the day off work today. And maybe that's the best time to paint. I haven't had a chance to cook up a myriad of excuses to keep myself out of the studio. The following is the first stages of a painting that I am very excited about. It's something I have been thinking about painting (in a way) for a long time now. It may be a little hard to see because it is very lean - the paint is cut by a lot of turpentine; but I am just trying to rough everything in at the moment.

Two more quick paintings

I should really be a bit more disciplined about the photos I take of my work. These are both pretty dark. But then I seem to be shooting things ineptly to get them on the site and going back later to either reshoot or edit the image. So keep checking back. I sneak updated images into old posts without ever mentioning it. (Bet you didn't notice I did that.)

Theses two paintings are small and in the same vein as the last two - get something down, do it in one sitting, it doesn't matter what, just how. And well, I think I loosened up and approached that juicy looking paint which is seemingly alive in its application and effortless in rendering the subject. Keep in mind I did say approaching...It's a flicker right there in the image of the garlic. The clove in the foreground happened first and happened quickly, and while it happened I was working out a new way of articulating what I was seeing. I was becoming a little more facile with my oil paint. (Quick, widen the doors! Her head is enlarging!) I will try and keep this in perspective. But it is refreshing. One more rusty painting bolt shaken loose!

(And I'm rediscovering my brown paints right now too.)

Another 3" x 5" sketch

I sat down to another quick painting today rather than working on my long term pieces. This took about three hours and was pretty challenging because the oil paint remains so wet. (Maybe I really am an acrylic painter.) I still am looking to develop a relationship with light. I feel I am drawing rather than painting - deliniating the form and edges of an object instead of utilizing paint's unique ability to convey luminosity, shadow, and highlight. I sat down again after this piece and began another short small composition that seems to be closer to this idea of capturing light. We'll see.
The photo has been tinkered with in Photoshop simply because it was too dark, but again, I think the program makes the colors a little surreal.

"A painting a day" or, "there are some paintings I just have to fling like a frisbee into the trash"

I'm feeling a little stuck lately. I was plugging away at the Dinner still life when I decided to add the magpie. Then I felt inspired. I knew what I was going to paint next. I researched it, built my support, prepared it, and sat down to paint...

Nothing.

I changed my direction. Searched some new sources, sketched out an image and began applying paint. It didn't work. The oil dried instantly, as if I was working with acrylic paint. A little research led me to conclude that the support needed some more preparation...A sizing to prevent the gesso from over absorbing the oil paint I was applying.

But still the whole process didn't feel very inspiring.

So here I was again with a blank canvas. After a few feeble efforts, I began a second painting of the same Dinner still life from a different point of view. A little boring? Perhaps.

I sat down to work on that reincarnation of the Dinner scene again today, and just started wondering what I was doing.

"What am I doing?"

So I bumbled around on the internet for a while and found a pretty interesting blog. http://duanekeiser.blogspot.com/ This guy is making a painting a day. And while I am not interested in the idea so much, I am interested in the work. It's beautiful. And perhaps best viewed by visiting his blog and clicking on the Archives link in the righthand column. It takes you to thumbnails of all his paintings organized by month. I think his work tells me that it doesn't matter what you paint, but rather how.

So here is what I sat down and wrenched out of my brush today. Yes, it was painful. And yes, I think it belongs to that category of "bad paintings".

I guess it's true. "Everyone just has a certain number of bad paintings in them. Get them out, and move on." Good advice from an old friend of mine.