Going to put up some work that’s been ongoing and newer stuff, just to see whether I keep at it. I may mix in other things. Life changes.
Have been working on these for ages. This is what they looked like last June. The center and right ones are probably done. The left one? Not so much.
I got started working big again, this time with drip backgrounds like I'd started at the Abstract in VT workshop with Jane in 2015. One of these actually IS a Big Fat Art piece from that workshop and the other two are painting to music loosening up pieces for this summer's workshop. All are on cheap drawing paper. What I've learned from working on these so far is that I want to do more big pieces, and I want to get more texture. Ergo, I'm going to start some on heavyweight Stonehenge printmaking paper and 20×24 canvas. Time to start thinking about winter projects!
BFA piece. Who knows what's under all that…going for a sort of street art-graffiti look here
These three started as a series riffing off the first one. The plan was to use a similar color scheme over the drip backgrounds.
This one is going to get a lot of that turquoise covered with black…
I don't know exactly where this one is going, but I love the top!
This year, Jane Davies held her week-long Abstract Painting in Vermont workshop in the Manchester Community Library. It is a great space, with lots of light and room to work, and climate controlled, which was a blessing this summer. Early August was beastly humid.
We had great fun with shapes (meltdowns notwithstanding) and pattern and throwing monkey wrenches into the works.
It was great to stretch the creative muscles and hone observational skills, and just spend the whole week flinging paint and seeing what would happen. Here are some of my pieces, the last of which I think it's finished.
This one is done. I've been calling it “Fifty Shades of Gray-Green”, but more than anything else it's a shape study with a little work on depth. 12×16 acrylic, graphite, and pastel on canvas.
Here's a canvas I painted for a friend. It took me much of the last half of last year, but I wasn't in a real hurry. Sunset colors were the only instructions. She loves the beach, though, and I promised her a castle. This is what came of that.
For the third year in a row I attended Jane Davies' week-long art retreat in southern Vermont. Despite some seriously hot weather, it was a great week and I feel like I accomplished a lot.
We were in the Rupert firehouse, as usual. They even had a call one day while we were at lunch!
We were working in series, starting with certain parameters and adding a few variables. I decided one of my parameters would be neutrals.
Somehow, this one got to look like Hello Kitty! I haven't had the hear to work it over yet. LOL
I'm happy with where this work is going. Nothing finished yet, but well on its way.
I've got about two dozen pieces in various stages, and I feel like I have a year's worth of inspiration and direction. Another excellent artful week with Jane and the girls!
I've started a few canvases as test pieces for a canvas I'm going to do for a friend. I wanted to play with colors and work with modeling paste and graphite…and not think too much. I started two fresh canvases and two that already have paint on them, all four 16 x 20.
I'm playing with sunset colors, the beach, the ocean…
And adding lines with graphite and then using them as structure for the composition…
At this point, I was looking at the piece from different angles,standing back, turning it around and thought 'oh, it goes this way'.
And it was practically done.
A lesson in the value of looking at your work from all distances, directions, and angles!
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