velocity

I calculated 46 hours in 4 days working in the studio this week, not including breaks.
!!!

And this is what I have to show for it:

City Lights, stitched

City Lights, begun painting
(the middle one is finished)




Urban Spaces #15
acrylic on stitched canvas
12x12"



Two new large ones begun:





And one large work finished.
begun 2 weeks ago:


mid-way:


finished:

Dwelling
acrylic on stitched canvas
41 x 43"

So this is interesting.
I can, with acrylic, make a painting in just a couple of weeks. The oil paintings took 5-6 months to make!

Of course the oil paint has a glow under lights that acrylic will never have, no matter what high-end brand acrylic paint colours I use. This is because light bounces off the surface of acrylic - whereas with oil the light travels through the colour, bounces off the white support, back through the paint layers and then to your eye. Which brings an incredible depth to oil colours.

This week I decided to stop lamenting the lack of glow and just go for it. So here on my computer screen the acrylic painting looks good, but in the studio when I put a spotlight on it the paint seems to go a bit dull. Light bouncing off the surface instead of traveling through...

Yes, I am a colour snob and it kills me to make a painting that doesn't have that glow. Wah! But I have to make my living, and maybe this will do.

Another thought: if I can make paintings so fast, how will my paintings change? Because they will change. Spending 6 months with a work is really intense, it's like getting to know the thing, becoming friends over the long haul.
A 3-week relationship is going to alter the spirit of the thing. Yes indeed.

But I'm on this boat now and I think I'll remain for the trip and see where we land.