I Lost it on Tuesday

"Gnarly but Nice"
It is so exhilirating to paint in an intuitive manner, at least for me. I know one thing for sure with each canvas..."this will be a challenge." It helps to have painted for a while. One of my favorite artists, would tell his students that to be a good painter you had to paint for miles and miles. I think it was a famous quote. I would have a great painting coming along and he would say, "now go home and start 10 more like it". I tell my students that they must paint a lot of paintings before they learn how to develop as artists. You learn something new with each painting. The next one forces you to recall the lessons of the previous. It's sort of like that muscle memory you learn about when you play a sport. Practice, practice, practice.

I don't pre-plan my large paintings. I work on them a while and eventually they ha, ha..."speak to me." Tuesday, I saw this wonderful alligator. He was slithering around on my canvas, part of his head, two eyes, one front leg...I know he was there. It was a colorful abstract canvas with texture and all those alligator parts. The next step is to "capture" the subject. I work out the composition with chalk or paint and try not to lose the little surprises I find so appealing. I have learned that not all paintings proceed in a orderly manner. I have to be willing to change directions or let alligators go. I lost my alligator Tuesday, he just refused to cooperate. All the work of the day was lost.
So today, I start again to capture that magic...just to relax and paint big shapes, color, line. Tomorrow the search begins...

"Swamp Thing"
a previous alligator that didn't get away

one is good, five is better

I am always working on something, or several somethings, at one time. I hear about artists who are intimidated by the big blank canvas, but perhaps because of my process I look forward to starting new work.

Spring seems to inspire new beginnings. I have been looking through some old canvasses that either didn't develop as planned, or did not fit with the project I may have been working on at the time. Some of these were pieces that I was very excited about. I set them aside and wait to see what happens. If after several months, I don't get back to the canvas, I cover it with texture and color and start again. I almost never work on one painting at a time. I like to take a break from a painting I am working on and look at it with fresh eyes. If I have two, or five painting to work on, I can rotate from piece to piece and give them all the time to develop. Started new work is exciting...texture and color and no plan whatsoever. Finishing is the hard part. A favorite artist/teacher once told me that you know a piece is finished when you can take a large painting and visually divide in into many small paintings, and all of them are interesting and finished. That is what I try to do with each canvas.

I will post the progress as I go.

a new triptych I love the colors in this piece

my lovely palette I draw with chalk once I have the colors I want

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Still Working

I have a brain full of thoughts and ideas for new artworks to create. Just don't ask me any questions that require me to recover a long lost number or memory. My brain is too full with diversions of reality. I am still in that gathering mode, which goes hand in hand with spring cleaning. I hope to tackle some of that soon.

I am trying to play with a lot of new materials and reviewing my sketchbook to see where that takes me. The following pieces are in progress. Some are barely started and some are near completion. I love books of all kinds and I am hoping that they will be an outlet for some magical little images.

book cover and book spread (in progress)

summer days (in progress)

More to follow...I am actually working on about 10 art projects right now. Juggling the order, according to my mood after a good cup of coffee each morning. I hope you will stay tuned...