Pictures?

Some day, some day.

I wonder how many other abstract painters consistently have a 'dump' painting going on. A painting that doesn't work, and you keep trying to save it, and ultimately just start trying whatever-the-hell, truly whacked out ideas, just to see if something sticks. Ultimately, the painting looks truly horrible, but maybe an interesting direction comes from it.

showtime

Getting new work ready for Thursday August 5th reminds me of the Inertia Twins who follow me around at such times. As the date nears parallel paths of slacking and activity race onward, finding me sweating with the effort of not doing anything up until a couple of nights before when I then have to do everything all at once.

Just sayin'.

jerry, the colonel, and me

i went out to sauvie island to paint on monday, with my pal jerry. we pulled the colonel up onto this grassy knoll, one of my favorite spots, and i worked on a couple of canvases, one large and one medium sized, while jerry continued his study of watercolor, which he is trying to master before a coming vacation in which he wants to paint with the most travel friendly of media. the morning was gray, and even drizzled a bit on the way out, but after lunch the sun broke through and the skies were blue.

this was my second large scale canvas in the past couple of weeks, and while i don't think this one was as successful as the last, still, it is so much more appropriate for me to work in this scale. at least it is much more fun.

after a couple of hours of painting we ran into our friends jane and catherine, who had been painting up the road a bit under a grove of giant oak trees. small world; but then, it's not so strange to come across a fellow plein air painter on sauvie island in the summer. it is, after all, about the most beautiful place on earth.


that's jerry there, manning his water color station. we were on opposite sides of the colonel, jerry facing east overlooking a pond, sweeping fields, and a small clump of evergreens. i was looking west over an inlet the name of which i am too lazy to look up, on oak island. at lunch we sat and watched osprey dive for fish in jerry's pond. we drank beers and shared our thoughts about art and life.

nature is my studio

over the last several months i have focused my attention on drawing and a very few very small paintings, due to a change in my environment. ordinarily i prefer to paint pretty large format pictures, three to four feet in any one direction. yesterday i had a few hours free and hauled my gear to the backyard and laid a large piece of canvas on the ground and went to town. this is about three feet by four feet; not huge, but it felt so after the little eight inch pieces i've been painting lately.

it felt good to use my whole body to paint again; to walk around a canvas, to reach far across it to the other side with a long dripping brush in my hand, to kick some dirt on it, to have ants walk across it, to squeeze liberal amounts of paint onto it from the tube and then smash the paint around to mix it with the other colors. it is a process that simply can not be replicated on a small scale.

i wasn't sure what this first, large painting would look like after my self imposed hiatus. my drawing, and even my small paintings employ much more structure and representational marks than my typical large scale paintings do, and i thought that maybe this would influence what came out, but it didn't. it's not uncommon for me to start with one thing in mind and finish with something completely different. the process takes over and one mark influences the next. this painting is evidence of that.

inside looking out

i am at the beach, sitting by the fire with four of my friends. it is raining & i am reading a book, "color", a history of the palette. and taking photos through window glass and drink glass, and daydreaming of about blood beetles and lapis stones.