Apple/Pear

I've been all over the place style-wise and subject-wise
lately and it feels good to just explore. I've been invited
again to participate in a small works show at the Abend 
Gallery in Denver. They have a great roster of artists so
I'm honored they asked. I hadn't been working small
enough and needed new work so I'm keeping it simple
and paying attention to paint and color. That seems totally
unremarkable but I've been so hung up on learning to
paint form, there hasn't always been room in my head for
the "art" part. I'm feeling confident enough lately to not worry
about getting the objects right, but to try a color or texture
or mark next to another and see if the piece holds together.
But then I started on the 6th one in this series yesterday and
got all hung up on getting it "right" again—easy enough to
scrape and stop, regroup.

Salt 'n' Pear

I wanted to play around with a painting that had more
background than subject matter, just to lay colors next
to each other and see if I could make them resonate.
And, make them work with the subject.

At the Window

I've been all over the map subject-wise lately, aiming to learn how to
not concentrate on painting the "thing" so much as manipulating paint.
I've always been interested in paint handling but maybe now trying
to be more conscious about it, how each stroke of color and value works
with the one next to it. Instead of racing ahead and having a vision of
what the painting should look like, how it should come out, I'm narrowing
my focus to what I'm actually putting down and then responding to what
comes next, essentially allowing it to come out the way it does.

Red Barn 2

Another try at the red barn . . . I go back to the same subject often
to see if I can simplify the way I think about painting it, find a
different approach, use different colors, emphasize different parts
of the composition and, just in general, see if there's been some
evolution.