Saturday, October 27, 2012

Flowers with Book

























More practice with "less is more" . . .

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Rambunctious

























These were the most uncooperative models! I had started
this painting with another arrangement only to find they
had completely shifted overnight. I painted the rearrangement
on top of what was already there and focused on their unruly
personalities. It was an opportunity to practice leaving stuff out.
By the time I got to the flower on the right, it felt right to mix
the grays, then use a few bright strokes and decide it was enough.




Monday, October 15, 2012

Apples and Oranges

























Trying to work on getting a more subdued overall tone . . . I think I
forgot the highlights. I toned the surface with yellow ochre, then used
viridian to block in the shapes and wiped out for the lights—trying to
get away from filling in outlines.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Cluster

























Very thick paint and a mindset to leave out detail and not "pretty
things up."

I love Stanley Bielen's work and visit his galleries' sites often but
have never seen this one before:

Rose/Carmine

or this:

Yellow/Red Ranunculus

Friday, October 12, 2012

Bloomin'

























Flowers have become easier since I stopped worrying about whether
they can be identified as the kind of flower they are. Then I could focus
more on color, paint, texture and composition.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Colored Bottles

























Practicing coloring outside the lines . . .

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Rose and Bud






































Flowers are complicated but they're an opportunity to learn to simplify and
think in a different way. Painting them is also slowly showing me the
elements that have been missing in most of my work.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Couple


























When I woke up yesterday, I didn't feel my usual drive to paint. 
But then the alternative would have been to clean house and there 
was no drive to do that! I needed a shot in the arm and had read about 
painting on mylar so thought I'd give it a try. The surface isn't that 
different from gesso but for some reason, it gave me permission to 
focus more on the paint than the subject—experiment rather than produce. 
When I look at this, it feels like I didn't paint it. Which might be a good 
thing to clear out old preconceptions about how my paintings "should" look. 
Thinking I'll use PVA glue to mount this to a gessoed panel . . . if anyone 
has experience mounting mylar, please let me know what works best.