PINK
I decided to just keep looking at that last painting for a time. So I started work on a 30 x 30 wood panel that had been calling to me from the corner of my encaustic work room.
I keep wanting to get some flow and gesture more in the wax painting process. That is my general way of working. However, the wax can cool so quickly that it is hard to get this flow painting with wax. In this particular instance I decided to use some of the paint I had mixed up in little cans on the hot palette and to use the brush and pour some of it out and manipulate it around…back and forth and so on. I had so many purples, pinks, reds, etc out that this painting ended up being dominated by pinks. I guess I’m on a pick kick since the Pink Ground painting not long ago.
Anyway, with all this said, I hauled it out on the studio porch and took this picture. I’m kinda thinking this is ‘done’……if not, then it won’t be much more done, and probably not noted by anyone but me
Pink Sky, encaustic on wood panel, 30 x 30 x 2 inches.
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Purple Ground
Purple Ground WIP 30 x 40 inches
I’m making a little progress on this acrylic painting that is so far to be referred to as Purple Ground. I started this on the day of a one-on-one workshop with another artist in my studio to show her how I begin a painting. This one had Quinacradone Purple as a tone under the layers.
I just now got back to it………and it is not finished yet. I’ll post when it’s finished.
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Hunting Art Prize
WOW…just an exciting week-end all around after I got some great news Friday. One of my paintings is a finalist in the 2011 Hunting Art Prize. Although there is a little controversy in the art world about this competition and how they choose the artists (isn’t there always??)…I am proud to be one of the 113 chosen. The winner will be disclosed at the Gala in Houston on April 30.
Here is the first PR I found about who has been chosen. Strange that the first notice I found came from south Mississippi. http://www.sunherald.com/2011/02/22/2882650/113-artists-move-to-final-round.html
The painting I entered is Green Day, Johnson Creek…….60 x 48 inches, acrylic on canvas. It was painted September/October 2010.
Green Day - Johnson Creek
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Interesting week
It’s been a busy, productive week for me in the studio. I agreed to teach a one on one class with another artist. SO, Monday we met at my studio and got into talking, painting and discussing what it is she wanted to learn more about. It was a lot of fun in many respects for me. I’m not trained as a teacher, so I hope I heard what she was wanting to learn more about and I hope that I helped her with it. I know that I learned just from the experience of thinking about and trying to articulate what I do in my own process.
In my trying to show her how I work…….and emphasizing that this is only one of a myriad of ways to work as an abstract artist, I got a good painting going for myself. Today I went back to work on it some more but I’ve decided it needs more time for me to think about it.
With that decided, I decided it was time to heat up the wax again and get to work on some more encaustic paintings. I started gathering up materials to think of using. It came to me to use some of my experiments with the hot box………..OR maybe just use paper incorporated into the work. Something slightly comical came to me to try so I’m going for it. If it turns out I’ll clue y’all in on it later. For now…only hints!
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Pondering content
Blue In_Process 20x16 encaustic on panel
I’ve mentioned before my dislike of working within themes or concepts. Last time I heated up the wax I was trying to work with a theme in mind. It was confining to my process to say the least. Finally, I just started working on another panel and that was a lot more fun for me. Although I liked the way the second painting started and the first one might end up being a pretty good painting when I get back to it, I feel constrained by having to work through someone else’s idea.
SO………does this mean I am not an artist if I don’t have a concept or an idea in mind other than the formal aspects I enjoy a lot more? I don’t know as I figure that many others might be in the same boat. However, in the scheme of things, that doesn’t matter to me about what the others feel…it is what I feel for my painting that matters. I know I have to stretch myself at times to do some of these pieces by someone else’s idea/them/concept. I may find I love the piece when I get through…………oh yeah, and I may hate it and just cover that sucker up so it will never see the light of day again.
For now, I just have to trust in the process I use to make art work………and hope it is art in someone else’s eyes as well as my own. I find content in the work after it is finished and I realize where it came from. ….within me, my imagination and my experiences.
SO…out there in blog land….where does your content come from?
Oh yeah…. and here is the 20 x 16 inch encaustic painting I have in progress that was fun to work on.
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Meander 3
I finally got back to the studio. It really feels like forever since I was there working on this canvas. With the cold, icy spell we had, and working with my new website format, I have been away far too long.
I’m sure this probably happens to everyone……….get away from the studio too long and when you come back you are a totally different (well, not totally) but you know what I mean. You mood is different, the light is different….your gesture will be off if you left in the middle of something. You end up painting over the whole thing and you have a whole new painting.
This is what I expected today and I was really not looking forward to this happening on a 48 x 48 inch canvas. WELL………..will wonders never cease, I think I escaped this time and was able to just keep piling on the paint. Most of my palettes had not totally dried up so I had some mixtures still working for me.
I think (hope) I am through with the painting I will title, Meander 3. I don’t know about you but I have become more dependant on looking at my work with a camera a lot of the time to know for sure that it really is finished. I’m pretty good at stopping……….but the best way to see it is to get away and a camera is a good way to do it.
Meander 3 acrylic on canvas 48 x 48 inches
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Progress
I got back to the studio and that painting looked better in the light of a new day. However, I decided to forget about theme show stuff and just lay down paint. I worked on the other prepped panel with other colors. So far neither are finished but I will get back to them later.
For the past two days I’ve been working on a 48 x 48 acrylic canvas…………..got a couple of layers on with a detail pic and a distance pic…. Will post more when it gets more layering of paint. Looks like another Meander series painting to me….we will see as I progress but the bones are there.
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Good and bad
Another good, sunny day around here. It’s really nice to have after all the gray, drizzly ones. However, I guess even sunny days don’t bestow good painting days every time. This was one of those days.
Not that it was terribly bad………..but I just don’t feel good yet about what I want on this panel. That’s what I get for having an inkling of an idea to start with. I gotta tell you I HATE themes. I had an idea for something along the lines of a show to enter for later in the year…..but ideas just never look and feel like what you thought they would. Oh well… if these don’t work out… I have something else that I can enter in that show.
I haven’t even done anything to the other panel but prep and lay down the first layers of plain medium. Maybe I should get over to it and work and leave this one alone.
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THE PINK SHOW
I’m happy to be part of THE PINK SHOW that Pam Farrell set up on her blog. Take a look at all the varied ways artists can use pink.
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Think Pink
Think Pink….that’s what they say at Pantone for 2011.
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20110106/LIVING03/701069995/0/taxonomylist
Pink is not really MY color when it comes to painting. However, I am up to challenges when it comes to color since I almost always learn something by using a color not in my usual repertoire.
SO… looking through all my acrylic paints I came across a Golden color called Light Magenta. I figured I would just tone my big 48 x 48 canvas with this color and go from there. I don’t have anything really in mind. I was considering…what can I combine with this color. A friend, Hylla Evans mentioned that it is wonderful with spring greens. That is really true… but it’s not spring yet around here even in northeastern Texas.
I guess that thought stayed stuck though as I just started using random colors I already had on my palette……….and they are colors I do use a lot, oranges and reds, grays and pale ochres that are mostly mixtures and went from there. I made a lot of lyrical marks with charcoal and then with black/paynes gray mixtures to get going. I even decided to do these marks with my non-dominant hand. I was surprised when these marks started looking like plant like forms. I thought they would have been more ridgid and clunky feeling with my left hand drawing them.
I’m including a close detail……….and the 85% finished work in the pictures. This work will need more paint and when that happens sometimes I paint a whole new painting. It will just depend on how I like what is happening when I go back into the one that is there now.
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Looking Forward, Looking Back
Kind of a slow day…contemplating this past year and all the possibilities that could await in 2011. How odd that sounds “Twenty Eleven”.
Husband and grandson doing some work around the ranch on the tractor cleaning up some things, breaking up the beaver dam again….no burning, as it is still too dry in our county.
And, happily, me in the studio, even with nothing momentous going on. All work now has the varnish, hangers and wire on it. Some distributed to one venue or another accounted for so I won’t send it out to the wrong place……….AND a new canvas with ground drying.
What am I going to do with this new 48 x 48?? Maybe continue on with my ‘meandering’. That’s as good a thought as any I think. I need to stay away from definate horizons for awhile just to keep from feeling like all I am painting lately is landscapes in whatever form they may take. BUT, my main plan is to let the canvas, the paint and my intuition take over. The most fun is in the start and in the end…..all that ‘in between’ struggle between me and the canvas is just something that has to happen. I really wouldn’t have it any other way…. I trust that it will resolve itself in time.
As most of us are looking forward and looking back, I want to wish you all a wonderful, fulfilling NEW YEAR …. TWENTY-ELEVEN. Bring it on! See you on the other side.
Cheers………..
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Meander
I finally got enough time to actually concentrate on my unfinished paintings in the studio. I started two 24 x 48 canvases before Thanksgiving. I THINK they are both finished now. You never know but I will post them both and if I change my mind….well you know what that means.
I started these both out on a ground of cadmium yellow medium. I don’t use a lot of this value of cad yellow that much………..Most of it is covered over but I like the way a little peeks out now and then in these mostly monochromatic pale gray paintings. I also had a lot of fun making a lot of marks with pencil and charcoal in the early, middle and latter part of the process.
Not really having a title for sure yet…they are tentatively titled……..Meander 1 and 2. The bottom image is a close up of Meander 1 on top.
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