From a time I went out hiking Mission Trails a few years back.
The colors & textures of this field - strewn with decaying logs and fresh sprigs of grass - is a reminder this time of year always brings. Let things change.
Sketchbook Dump
Just a few pages of my current sketchbook as I practice & plan for more plein air sessions.
Am Wandering
My love affair with wandering and this cove continues. A few drawings and a painting from today.
Hedonistic Delights
Detail: Flower in a current work in progress commission.
Detail: Flower in a current work in progress commission.
There’s something distinctly sensual about working with paint. I think it has a lot to do with its lush fluidity. To be a painter, it is my opinion, you're usually some shade of hedonistic. Or an automasochist. Some days it seems a fine line. (Especially ones where you spend a whole day trying to materialize a flower in oils only to be beat back at every try until a last effort where you swear you've lost your touch / eye for it).
But I digress. This post is about hedonism, mostly, as there's near nothing - for me - more pleasurable than a flower rendered in oils in luxurious strokes. I like to paint my flowers in one pass rather than layered with drying time in between - linseed oil added for that extra gloss and movement. For me it creates a more energetic feel when swipes of paint slide through one another, catch and meld to bring out a subtle color blend, and in the wake leaves the high relief and impression of my brush's intentional path. It's definitely trickier to prevent colors from muddling in this approach, but the reward is that of a painted flower vibrating a bit more on the canvas. Though more punishing in practice, I love a little chaotic, purposeful energy distilled into pigment, worked through to figured petal and leaf.
Detail: “Other People’s Lives” oil on canvas.
Detail: “Other People’s Lives” oil on canvas.
Where the Sea ends.
"Two Ends of the Sea" Acrylic and oil on canvas panel, 2017.
Back to this. More coming this winter as I force myself into hibernation (my preferred state of being, to be honest.)
In the Garden of
Sketchbook experimentation leads to new things. Rolling with it.
"In the Garden of" watercolor and graphite on paper, 2016.
Late Afternoon Camellias
"Late Afternoon Camellias" Oil on 12x12" canvas. 2016.
Another plein air piece from the Norfolk Botanical Gardens in preparation for an upcoming spring show. This one was a serious challenge with the composition and the tricky lighting that was changing so rapidly as I painted, but it was well worth the effort. (Frozen solid hands and all.)