For a while now I’ve wanted to share more about what I’m working on in the studio and offer a glimpse into the process of making of these paintings. I often paint a bundle of larger canvases and ship them off to galleries before even showing them to anyone besides my family if they happen to swing by the studio. Love my fam, but I figured it would be nice to share them with you, as well.
If you’d like any more photos, videos, or pricing information about anything you see here just send me an email (or use the button below) and I’ll get back to you asap. Along with sharing the process, I always want you to have first dibs on anything I paint before it leaves the studio.
So without further ado, here’s a roundup of what I’ve been painting lately:
Let’s start with the one that is truly still in the making:
My grandmother is an incredible painter and a huge reason I even thought painting professionally was a viable career option. Recently she and my grandfather moved, and in the process she gave me several canvases she wasn’t using. I had been (and still am) very drawn to painting on raw linen, and fortuitously several of the canvases she sent my way were linen. This particular one is primed on the front so I flipped it around and painted this landscape on the back to utilize the raw linen. Eventually I will re-stretch the canvas painting-side-up, but for now she’s hanging out as-is. This got me very excited to experiment more on different types of canvas.
My favorite way to paint is LARGE. I prefer a canvas the size of a small adult. Thankfully 48x60” is a common size for me, and when I propped this canvas up this landscape spilled out. Last year I spent so much time on smaller still lives which was uniquely delightful and the fulfillment of a long-percolating idea. But those little paintings took a good bit of precision and attention to detail that large-scale landscapes and abstracts don’t seem to require from me, ironically. So diving back into large-scale landscape painting I let myself go in without a plan, and just paint whatever felt natural. When this happens I usually end up with a scape like this that feels equally adventurous and restful - like you could jump into the scene and either hike 10 miles or take a nap by the river. Both are my ideal scenarios.
Occasionally I get an idea stuck in my head and have to keep painting it until I’m sick of it… or just forever, which it seems I will be doing with abstract rivers! Zero complaints, I love painting these. Somehow each one feels like a breath of fresh air and still provides a puzzle to solve somewhere in the painting process. They can handle endless iterations and tweaks and I never tire of them. Lately I’ve been drawn to adding those warmer hues around the implied horizon lines, loving the softness those subtle peachy ivories add to a predominantly cool-toned canvas.
I painted this not long after the initial landscape on linen. I wanted to use a similar color palette but see how it translated to primed wood panel. It’s fascinating to see how materials inform a finished painting.
Similar to the 48x60, I just let this one ride. No plan, no sketching the composition. Just a freestyle landscape. When I started blocking in the sky color I still had some kind of beige or yellow color stuck in my brush (I’m not always the best at thoroughly rinsing my brushes as I paint) and when mixed with light blue paint, it created this warm, almost greenish-blue that felt like the sky after a storm and informed the direction of the rest of the painting. A happy accident I was glad to follow.
Honorable mention: This landscape I painted for my husband’s office. He recently moved his team into an office space in downtown Brevard and put me in charge of securing office art. Most of the art is prints, but we wanted to go big for the conference room wall that faces a large window open to the sidewalk/street. Dakota has built such an incredible business in Sycamore Builders (with the kindest, most communicative and skilled team, a commitment to sustainable practices, I could go on) and even if I had no vested interest, I would be so honored to have this painting in their offices. (It’s my email and I’ll brag if I want to!!!) This will be a fun experiment to see if he reads this email and makes a comment about it later. 😏
LASTLY: I‘ve been prepping for The 2025 Studio Sale, coming up Tuesday, January 28! It’ll be full of “seconds” prints (test prints, non-standard sizes, etc), and a few originals, too. It’s for email listers only so stay tuned for the link in your inbox 1/28 at 10am eastern.
Okay that about covers it for now! I have a few commissions in the works I may cover next month, but for now these are the new (available) paintings hanging out in the studio. Let me know if you want more info about any of these. And let me know if you liked this!!(?) It’s my first time sharing more of the process behind the paintings so I’d love to know if you want more of these In the Making emails throughout the year. I assume if you were ultra bored you’d have bailed by now. But feel free to share your thoughts.
OMG I love your paintings. The color and composition is amazing. And your process. Also I find painting on a smaller canvas is sometimes limiting. Thank you for sharing.
Lucy, it was fun reading a bit more about your process, especially the different materials and colors! My favorite part is the happy accident with the warmer tone mixed into the sky. I love it when that happens! I’ll look forward to the next issue.