In the Making: Volume 8
A closer look at what's been on my easel lately.
Much has happened since my last update. This family has seen nearly every ailment preschool has to offer (still holding out on HFM), I have potty trained one whole human, I have held a baby for nights on end until he finally - miracle of miracles - got tubes in his ears, and we have inched closer and closer to finishing a home renovation. Now here we are in May where the sun is shining, the trees are green, no one in my family actively has a fever, and I am painting! Praise be!
I am finishing up a big group of paintings, several of which will be heading to Anne Irwin for release next month. If you want more info about any of these paintings (pricing, extra photos, etc) just send me a message and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
Without further ado…
First up, this pair of abstracts. I have been focused on landscapes for the past year or so, but last week I got the sudden urge to shift to these abstracts. Warm weather tends to make me gravitate toward color and pattern and that’s exactly what I leaned into here. I was picturing beach towels strewn out on the sand while layering in the stripe patterns, so I’m affectionately naming these “Beach Towels I & II.”
I am always wont to revisit a river scene, especially if I’m not sure where to go next. It’s my faithful palette cleanser and even after painting countless rivers they are somehow never the same. Can’t step in the same river twice, indeed.
This was inspired by a diptych I painted last year with coastal colors and a marshy composition. I wanted to re-approach the concept but in one continuous scene on a larger scale. I was conscious to keep the layers of painting tools visible especially in the foreground - starting with a wide brush (which you can see in the bottom right area where dark green laps up over the blue water), a medium flat brush carrying some of the golden and emerald grasses, moving on to a palette knife for physical texture, and finishing with a thin round brush to add those bright, stark scratches of visual texture on top.
This is a perspective I rarely paint, almost aerial. The scene is from an image of Lake Glenville not too far from me in North Carolina. Every year around this time I resume my annual hobby of scouring Zillow for impractical lake houses in which to spend my imaginary summer days. Perhaps in this scenario I have just concluded a leisurely morning sipping coffee on the boat before hiking a nearby mountain where I eat a sandwich packed from home (a sandwich enjoyed on a summit is always better than a regular sandwich). I take in *this view* before heading back to the lake house to doze off on the screened-in porch as a gentle afternoon thunderstorm rolls by.
Another landscape nod to Black Balsam Knob, one of my favorite spots on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I always love how the rocky path cutting through the scrubby growth looks almost river-like and I wanted to paint it in a way where it could be interpreted as either a trail or water.
Maybe this painting is partially to blame for my hankering to get back to abstracts. It carries all the whimsy of an abstract but with the direction a landscape brings. A beachy-feeling mountain scene. Best of both worlds.
Last up, one of those fabulous paintings that felt totally effortless. Man, I love it when that happens. Every few months I get one of these if I’m lucky. I pop the canvas on the easel (or maybe floor - can’t recall where this one began) and just go. The colors mixed easily, deciding which brush to use and where felt intuitive, and I knew exactly when I was done. Ba da bing. Of course this exact process is rare, but take the wins when you can!!
I have a few more paintings I haven’t gotten around to photographing yet - a 60x40 river, a 48x48 river, a 40x40 landscape, and a 36x36 abstract. If you want pics/info for any of those just respond to this email and I’ll send it over.
THANK YOU as always for letting me share the painting process with you. I hope you’re having a beautiful start to your summer.