08 July 2013

let it be

Last week in the studio I did a bit of re-organizing and some prep work for making more small landscape paintings.  In addition to using canvas, I want to try gesso-ed paper.  I've done this with portraits - see here - and find I really like the surface of gesso-ed paper, so why not try it with landscapes.

In between studio re-organizing and landscape prep I worked on some urban things.  

Above, a painting that has been underway for some time.  Below, the final finishing touches.  

Here are two that were begun last October:


Unfortunately I was careful with neither choice nor application of colour when I began working on the larger one.  After many layers, it has come to here:


The original open and delicate feeling of the stitched canvas has been oppressed by too-heavy colour.  

Ah well, I can only move forward, trust in my painting skills and know that this work is becoming something other than originally conceived - like so many others!  In fact, it is this refusal of the work to behave itself and progress as planned that keeps me intrigued, ha.

I recently read Stephen King's book "On Writing", which I thoroughly enjoyed, and in which he talks about starting with a character and a situation, and letting them develop.  The fact that his characters can surprise him is essential to his writing.  Well then, the same is true for my paintings.



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