Trying to Finish

Day after Easter, kind of cold and wet, just the weather I like for working in the studio.  I'm not drawn outside by sunshine.  Still trying to wrestle three paintings to the ground and call them  finished.  'Take a Seat' is close, the other two I'm still  lost in composition with.  One reminds me of a trip to San Miguel Allende and I am still working on capturing the mood of that wonderful place. Today I took a step in that direction, strengthening some darks and defining a few of the shapes.  The other is still giving me trouble.  I feel like it's almost there except for one shape on the upper right.  It is becoming more organic but needs something I can't define.  That's the challenge of working with abstraction, knowing when enough is enough.

Happy Easter

view from our deck courtesy of our friend Jan

I'm still trying to get this thing going. With the help of my nephew, Matt Curry, I think I'm there.   My painting adventures this week included almost finishing 'Take a Seat' and struggling with two abstracts, one of which was sorely critiqued by my Thurzday Painterz friends.  I still like it but can't figure out how to finish it.  My problem was going into dark values too soon.  Now I have to go back and take out some color, always risky.  I read an excellent article in Watercolor Artist by John Salminen, reviewing Chinese artists work shown in the Chinese International Watercolor Exhibition last year.  The paintings are beautiful and remind me to slow down and consider every element of design, every day if I ever hope to paint something as beautiful as those artists have.  That's what's wrong with the 'problem' painting, charging in too fast without enough consideration of the details.   Finally, I did enter the California Watercolor Association's 42nd national Exhibition.  I took a risk and entered 3 pieces of my current series from one still life.  I had a hard time deciding what to enter but finally decided to go out on a limb and enter the edgier more risky pieces.  I hope one will catch the jurors eye.  Happy Easter

Another Day

My favorite painting weather. Fog/ rain.  spent some good hours working on 'Take a Seat"  It's close to being finished and with Tues. Wed. and Thurs. guaranteed as at least a few hours, I should be done by Friday.  I'm also working on a 'random' piece that started as a response to a 'dark' mood I was in last Monday.  Attacking the paper with no plan, I was surprised to find that my mood wasn't what I thought.  Apparently I was happy!  Wonder what would happen if I felt happy and started with the same attack mode.  Anyway, I like what's happening so far, and finally got the nerve to approach it again today.  After removing the resist, I added more color.  It's warming up. Now I've got to make some hard decisions about how to finish.  I keep trying to avoid the inevitable 'it looks like' vibe and just stay loose. I don't want to start trying to make it conform to a thing -but the mood is happy and tropical.  Can I stay there?

Getting Started

Just getting started on my blog. Don't exactly know how it  all works but I guess I'll find out.  My intent in creating this blog is to record the events of my art life.  Paintings I'm working on. Shows I am entering. Workshops I'm taking. And anything else that will help me process the work I love to do.  Right now I'm finishing up one painting that is part of my collection series, named "Take a Seat" .  I love the perspective and abstraction of this piece and think it's going to be exciting to view when it is finished. Getting the drawing on paper was very difficult and I had to succumb to projection to get the basic lines in order.  After that it took another day of drawing before I was ready to start painting.  I began with a simple palette of opera, naples yellow and manganese to create the shimmering light in the background.  From there I  added cobalt, yellow ochre and permanent rose to strengthen the values.  The images above with the exception of the first are examples of other paintings in my collection series.  I really enjoy finding ordinary objects that show a different view of life. As Mike Bailey says: Exault the mundane to the Extrordinary!