This is what I did last night. It was pretty cool. The project was organized by a small local non-profit Art Builds Community. Earlier this summer I applied to work with another project of theirs and when I wasn't selected I asked that I be kept in the loop to volunteer if necessary. Well, Monday night I got the call or the email rather and agreed to show up at a home for adults in Somerville. We were just putting on the finishing touches and pulling together what the members of the home had produced themselves. It was a good chance to get out and to meet people. Surprisingly I found myself amongst a group of art therapists and I made a new friend. Read about the concurrent Chelsea Mass project here. 
I got some birch veneer panels at Home Depot and had some poplar 1 by 2s cut to glue on the back and prevent the panels from warping. All four are assembled and two are already gessoed with a few beginning oil paint images. Here is one of them.
Hopefully things are growing right now because the work feels incredibly awkward. Tyler and I went up to the North Shore this weekend with the idea that he would fish while I set up my paints and easel on the shoreline and got to work. The results are above. I think it helped to loosen me up and refocus my patience. I also enjoyed working from life and local color. I think it helped to open up my pallette. I will be taking the upcoming week off while I visit with my parents in Arizona. Expect more work after that!
I visited the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham yesterday. It is a small contemporary collection housed in an old high school. They are currently showing work from their members and I was struck by a gorgeous oil painting. I can't think of the artist at the moment, but the work was unctuous, fanciful, botanical; and peppered with copulating insects. Oh, yes it was...
I began this last week while Jane was sleeping in one morning. We had walked home the day before and I cut a hydrangea off a bush in front of a neighboring building. Real classy, I know. But when I sat down and began laying on paint I remembered the plant in the vase in the room next door. Here is the resulting painting. It may or may not be finished. The image below is an updated image of the painting after a second session of work. I scratched back into the oil paint and was able to make some tiny botanical drawings on the right side of the compostion. Check it out.
I know, I know; but the cynicism of the title is sort of apropos of my life right now. I haven't accomplished a whole lot of painting this week as I have a house guest. But I have begun a new piece. I tried pouring the oil paint. This again was prompted by a visit to a friend's studio, and it is exactly in line with what I did after my undergraduate degree. But I think there is something entirely too arbitrary to it. I quickly needed images and marks upon which to hang and mold the composition. This week I was able to show my house guest my current work, and I think she was most struck by the pen and ink drawings I began - as am I. And I believe that their strength lies in the mark. So I am trying with this painting to begin to explore what the mark means to me within the medium of paint.
So perhaps this isn't as much a departure as I felt it was yesterday. The botanical images are painted from direct observation which I haven't done in quite a while. But I am able to create a more dynamic image if I work from an actual object in front of me in the studio. When I sat down to work today the delicate maple leaves had curled and dried out changing shape. I didn't think to anticipate that change yesterday. But I suppose I am satisfied with the first impression of them I was able to make. After finishing this piece, I think I will continue to paint in oils for a time.
