Laden

Laden   oil/canvas   20 x 20 x 1.5

is perhaps the best word to describe the peak of winter joy for me...trees weighted down with snow, their shapes achieving completely different personas.  We take notice.

This is my front yard.  Foreground drifts are thickly described using few strokes and a palette knife.  The trees are fairly accurately described.  The warmth of the background has been amped up to achieve a more dynamic relationship with the foreground.  

An older painting with plenty of texture was covered over in this work.  I am finding that I really enjoy the layering over of canvasses....more surprises, more character, more chaos.  What a rush!

I am pleased.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes   oil/canvas   11 x 14 x .5

This work painted itself before I began...knew what I wanted.  No table. No bowl....and no pretty tablecloth.  Very minimal with warmish white background.

Back in the day, I shot my work on an old school camera then loaded the images onto my computer.  These days, my I Phone does the job.  A great job...almost too good.

This is not what my painting looks like.  Trust me.  My phone camera has the ability, it seems, to see through layers of paint.  And brushstrokes are almost super-humanly visible.  The white background is invisible because former layers are poking through.  Oh, yes, I fiddled with the controls and color adjustors until my attention to the task had evaporated.  My entire day is focused on finding the hours I need to paint.  And I resent clerical hours, although they are necessary.

So..........................what you are seeing is not the true picture.  Just imagine a wispy white background.  Wabi Sabi. 

Gerbera

Gerbera   oil/canvas   14 x 11 x .5

 Painting flowers is not for sissies!  So much information...so much detail...and so many relationships!  Painting them leads down the path of itty-bittiness that is not in my nature.  Although they are definitely not my favorite subject, I do paint them from time to time in order to stretch my brushwork as well as my mind.  My goal of simplification of shapes and of brushwork is put to the test.  

This is my latest effort...a single large bloom, single stalk, single leaf, and single pot is all I could muster.  

There be it...until next time.