sometimes the out-takes are the loveliest

Photographing my work last night, I came across this picture that I'm pretty sure I didn't even mean to take. Its lovely.

I've been making progress on a new painting (I think its getting close to done), and I've been thinking a lot of this piece and the last being the nexus for a new body of work, inspired by the combination of water and the built environment, and my long held desire to live in a little house near water. I've been seeking out the ocean more & more in the last few months (loving that I'm a fairly easy drive away). Walking to the slough on my lunch break, watching the Willamette every morning as I take my dog to the park. I feel a connection with water and the space around it, and keep seeing these wonderfully decrepit boats along roadways and in yards. Finding myself drawn to time ravaged buildings, 1850s anatomical drawings & maps of waterways and highways and tidal charts I don't know how to read. One of my favorite ways of creating is to fill myself up with looking and see what happens.

a house by the sea
oil on canvas
36"x40"

etsy store

I started an etsy store. Go check it out, tell me what you think and it would make my week if you bought something (no pressure, but my work is pretty awesome and less than $20)

I'll be adding more items hopefully sometime this weekend.

its been awhile

Since my last post, I went on vacation, and got sick and didn't spend enough time in the studio. I've got a small backlog of images to post, and debated whether I should put everything in one post or not and decided to just go ahead and do it, as I'm planning a blog announcement for later this week (stay tuned.) My artmaking is a bit all over the place. I made silhouette portraits for Mother's Day of me and my siblings, made my largest silverpoint drawing yet, and started real work on another big painting, and of course I'm still sewing nest-like shapes onto paintchips. I know I've said it before, but I'm saying it again, I missed painting big.

So, without further rambling on my part here's a sample of what I've been making in the last month or so.

Silhouettes

New Painting (work in progress)

better picture of the last finished painting, now titled "elegy: to my nana"

new silverpoint

better(?) pictures of older silverpoint

paint chips

I love the color inspiration of paint chips (i'm particularly fond of the Martha Stewart Collection at Lowe's). They're compact size, the little hints of pure hue, I've collected them for a long time. Sometimes I think every trip to the hardware store necessitates a stop by the paint department for this very reason. When I didn't have a studio this fall I found my collection and started sewing concentric circles, loosely arranged around the idea of nesting into them; a project I've continued in my new space. These tightly wound circles with a subtle texture that seem to want to be traced. For a long time I haven't known what to do with them, but now i'm starting to think i need to make more and more and more, and cover a wall in them, or place them in a long tight line down a long hall....or something. I really like the way they group together.







My studio time of late hasn't produced much worth photographing. There are lots of projects in the starting phase & a belated Mother's Day present that needs finishing. I like the work of starting things - stretching canvases, painting and sanding layers of ground - but it isn't really much to look at. And when I'm home watching the LOST finale I can sew my tiny concentric circles onto paint chips.

New Painting finished (for my Nana)

Its been a hectic month. I moved into a new apartment, entered a new decade and drove to the coast for my art opening at Coos Art Museum. It was a great turnout and a really lovely show full of 60+ talented painters from several western states. Images of the exhibition are now available online, but of course art always looks better in person.

I haven't quite decided on a title yet, but this painting is very inspired my Nana and was conceived as an elegy to her. It is my second elegy painting, the first

elegy: to the last great green mountain man was painted in 2007.

elegy to the last great green mountain man

oil on canvas

36"x48"

Its always hard for me to decide when a painting is finished, especially as reworking is such a huge part of my process. I could rework details for years, but learning when to stop is an important lesson. So I'm posting this painting with a caveat...its most likely finished (but I might make a few small changes after I let it sit a little longer)

here's a detail view:

more silverpoint

I really need to find a better way to photograph these. Suggestions anyone?

One Large and one small-ish.

large, 22x30in, Silverpoint on Watercolor Paper


small, 8x10ish, Silverpoint on Domestic Etch



detail



another detail

the evolution of a painting

A big part of my painting process is to start with the kernel of an idea, then work and rework and rework a painting, adding layers, taking shapes out, putting shapes back in until there's some semblance of a finished painting (how's that for a process, and a run-on sentence). I've been taking paintings of my latest painting, and I thought it might be interesting to show them. Its not quite finished yet, but I think its pretty close.

So here's are some before and after pictures. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me how self-indulgent I've become.