New paintings: water, flowers and do overs

I’ve been having a lot of fun in the studio and I thought I’d share some of what I am doing and finishing … or re-starting.

Two new paintings are almost ready for gallery and sale and a batch of others are in process. Here’s a diptych that I just need to edge and sign.

The colors of the confluence of Swatara Creek and the Susquehanna River as day turned to dusk one night last week inspired this painting.

The pups and I stood watching the magic happen as the moments moved. Well, I think the pups were watching the ducks while   I was taking in the color show. I don’t know whether its present title, “Misty Moments” will remain. For now, it works.

Here’s a collage that made it to the gallery today.

It’s all paper, including my homemade paper, and a product of studying with Elaine Brady Smith at the Art Association of Harrisburg.

 

Since I like to show my collectors and friends how my work comes into final form, I will share a few photographs of paintings in process.

Because I am a layer and texture painter, my oils can take months to cure and my acrylics take longer to dry than most acrylic paintings because I layer and layer and layer until the painting tells me to “stop.”

Here’s a partial view of what is drying on the oil paintings wall.

Keep in mind that any or all of this is subject to change on a whim or in a fit of artist frenzy if I glance up and see something I don’t like. I’ve been known to cover paintings that don’t work out with entirely new paintings. It beats putting scissors through the canvas, which I used to do a lot.

de Kooning, you know, destroyed a lot of his work.  I understand why he did.  I find it cleansing to clear, cover or cut up a painting that just won’t work out.

The two paintings of flowers on the wall in the photo below have abstract paintings beneath them. I just could not like what I had done; so I started over. The painting to the left of the flowers was a blue water scene with high green growth in the foreground. It exhibited twice, but there was something about it that irked me no end. So, I removed it from circulation and started over.

I know you hear that artists live with their heads in the clouds. Certainly, I have been known to dream, to soar, to escape in my own head. Moving beyond the stereotypes, REALLY, art is an exercise in problem solving. It’s a marriage between innovation and the critical processing of information displayed in a visual format. Or so I believe, based on what I experience when I paint.