Gray skies make for good painting conditions in the studio, diffused light and an excuse for a blazing wood fire. I've settled into working on several pieces at once which seems to assuage creeping anxieties about producing enough work. I work with a canvas until I've poured as much juice as I can into it. Then I abandon it for another and then another until eventually I'm back to the first with fresh perspective and invigorated inspiration. And so on. This rotation lets me go with the flow easier. When a piece is really asking to be worked, then I dive in. Like my houseplants when they ask to be watered, it's an almost audible sensation. I've been developing this one image in white on black, veering from liking where it's going to despair that I'm ruining it (standard procedure for me). Finally I let it rest. I was laboring and I'm not keen on that feeling. I prefer ease and excitement. So I lay it aside and face the waiting mob of white before me. I'm surrounded by big blank canvases and if I don't do something, they will bring me down. My favorite remedy for this situation is to play. I either sketch a bunch of loose ideas out on paper or, even better, just fool around with color on these big intimidating hunks of gessoed substrate. I find it supremely relaxing, enjoyable and I think I'm good at it. The results are always satisfying to me, at least. Apple green smudging into citron misted with grey and tinged with brilliant red. Or a warm mottle of tangerine and dark pink struck though with browns. Today I tackled the big kahuna. My four by six footer. I muscled it onto the easel and dug out a pint of ultramarine I plucked from Grandpa's studio detritus when we moved him to the nursing home. I slashed though that cruel white with big globs of brilliant blue. Smearing and blotting and buffing out. It took awhile and as I was working I got to know a whole new Blue. Not at all cold. Exciting. Deep. Radiant. Big and blue, like a new world. I think I like this wide open territory and I am enheartened. All is good.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Big and Blue
Gray skies make for good painting conditions in the studio, diffused light and an excuse for a blazing wood fire. I've settled into working on several pieces at once which seems to assuage creeping anxieties about producing enough work. I work with a canvas until I've poured as much juice as I can into it. Then I abandon it for another and then another until eventually I'm back to the first with fresh perspective and invigorated inspiration. And so on. This rotation lets me go with the flow easier. When a piece is really asking to be worked, then I dive in. Like my houseplants when they ask to be watered, it's an almost audible sensation. I've been developing this one image in white on black, veering from liking where it's going to despair that I'm ruining it (standard procedure for me). Finally I let it rest. I was laboring and I'm not keen on that feeling. I prefer ease and excitement. So I lay it aside and face the waiting mob of white before me. I'm surrounded by big blank canvases and if I don't do something, they will bring me down. My favorite remedy for this situation is to play. I either sketch a bunch of loose ideas out on paper or, even better, just fool around with color on these big intimidating hunks of gessoed substrate. I find it supremely relaxing, enjoyable and I think I'm good at it. The results are always satisfying to me, at least. Apple green smudging into citron misted with grey and tinged with brilliant red. Or a warm mottle of tangerine and dark pink struck though with browns. Today I tackled the big kahuna. My four by six footer. I muscled it onto the easel and dug out a pint of ultramarine I plucked from Grandpa's studio detritus when we moved him to the nursing home. I slashed though that cruel white with big globs of brilliant blue. Smearing and blotting and buffing out. It took awhile and as I was working I got to know a whole new Blue. Not at all cold. Exciting. Deep. Radiant. Big and blue, like a new world. I think I like this wide open territory and I am enheartened. All is good.
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1 comment:
It looks great already. I love reading about your process. It's really fun watching the blow-by-blow with this particular canvas and I hope you'll continue.
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