Longing...

Longing   watercolor   13.5 x 18

There are things and there are situations that fill me with a sense of longing.  Good longing.  A sense of the pure in this world.  One of those things is anything that is hand-carved....a one-of-a-kind object that represents someone else's longing and dedication.  Out subject for class was an architectural element.  I pulled this relief panel off the wall to take along.  I believe that it probably came from an old dresser.  When I stopped at the market on the way, I decided that these roses were the perfect companions for the work.  Hard:soft.  Geometric:organic.  Wood:plant matter.  The first step was to lightly indicate the carvings on the panel...the crevices, the shadows, the gullies.  The roses were painted at home over the week as they opened to a desirable place.  The final passes tied the entire work together....a bit of push and pull, to and fro.  The leaves and the darks were added at the end.  This is the opposite approach of my usual, which forbids me to enter the world of detail before the "big picture" is somewhat in place.  It was a refreshing departure, however.  And....an example of the particularities of each project...doing what will benefit the work itself....and staying out of familiar routines. 

Guest

Guest   oil/canvas   8 x 24 x .75

We had quite a few guests over the Christmas holiday....our sons from California, our son from Virginia, their lovely wives, our new grandson.....and....snow!  Those who live in San Francisco relish the opportunity to see snow...feel snow...and enjoy the feeling that this season provides.  This is, after all, the yard in which they grew up....running, hooping-it-up, raking, and gathering.  The mood was all-important here...the feeling that this scene emits.  Values in the mid-range help to tell the gauze-like story of the gray day.  Guests....

LOVE...

Love   oil/canvas board   8 x 8

Happy Valentine's Day!  Oh-so-many years ago, I painted roses, roses, and more roses while doing greeting card work for Papyrus....at that time Shurman Fine Papers.  Roses are complex.  And they are difficult.  I don't particularly favor them, but they are certainly appropriate for the season.  Actually, I thought that I had had my fill.  In painting them, I try to understand their construction and have found that painting individual leaves (at first) is the way to proceed.  This little ditty was painted as an exercise, a discipline.  Understanding their construction helps us to understand other kinds of folds and other kinds of complexity.

All That Glistens....stepping out of the regional

All That Glistens   oil/burlap/canvas/gold leaf   24 x 18 x 1.5

The bad news is that none of our children lives close by...so we don/t get to share time together on a weekly basis.  The good news is that we get to view art in galleries in major cities that are so very different than the regional art that we participate in  and view on a regular basis.  In this case...San Francisco.  Our last visit was comprised of a half a dozen galleries located in the downtown area.  The work yielded no surprises...it was all abstract, very very large and very very impersonal.  Designed to be impersonal.  The only commanding figurative works were in a series of photographic works taken of circus performers from Eastern Europe, I think.  While representational painters are often accused of working in a technique-driven box, abstractionists seem to work in another sort of box- line murmurations, squiggles and patches of bland hues ad nauseum.  My humble opinion, of course.  What I came away with, however, was the wonderful notion of possibility - simply anything goes!  I was inspired by patches of blue and white resembling a flow blue plate; fearlessness in the use of color; and, yes, works on burlap!  Carrying within them the knowledge of hard-won possibilities, these California works represented a great freedom to me.  I came away with new eyes.

"All That Glistens" is my post-holiday foray into a different world...one outside of my unusual regional recipe.