A two month process, with interruptions.

"Giving way to Light"

oil on canvas 48"x48" (This is the second largest canvas I have painted..The other was 48" x 60")

 The process goes something like this:
1. choose photo to work from
2. grid photo and canvas and transfer as an underpainting in a wash of raw umber or something similar. This is often the most exciting part of the process as I watch the image appear on canvas. I also love the loose "drawing-like" slightly crude quality.
3. Start applying color.
4. agonize over color..do I want it to actually look realistic? This so far has been impossible, but it keeps driving me.
5. Mom visits from Maryland. Spend time with her. I paint only sporadically.
6. Daughter graduates from college, spending time at home before and after before she disappears to Papua New Guinea for the summer. Time to be with her. I paint only sporadically.
7. Life quiets down. By now I seem to have lost my momentum and can't remember what colors I used and where.. I start plugging away, but with none of the intensity of the beginning.
8. Painting too big to see properly in my small studio.
9. Take painting outdoors where I immediately see all the spots in it that need adjusting. Fix them.
10. Finished! Take photos for blog.
11. See in photos all the spots that don't work.. I am impatient.
12. Fix the spots.
13. Proclaim it is as good as it can get without ruining it. Take new photos, which NEVER depict the true color.
14. I am SO DONE!
15. Blog time

This process took place over about 2 months..I wasn't painting all the time and I try to keep track of my hours...but once the process gets interrupted, I start to loose interest or just forget to do it. (People are always asking how long it takes to paint something like this..

I am planning on updating my website as soon as I have a good day for outdoor photos and a good camera. Soon I hope!

Shaded Sea

Once I concentrated on the final plunge, all went smoothly...

"Shaded Sea" oil on canvas (24"x30")

Up against the wall!

( "The Wall" oil on canvas, 24"x24")
When I began this painting a month ago, I thought I had a clear idea of where I wanted it to go...I wanted to somehow convey the experience of being in the water on a clear sunny glassy day, looking on as a wall of white water comes rushing at me.. Stopping it in motion for just a second to explore the reflections, the shape of the moving foam, the angle, what movement looks like when it stops...The experience is always breathtaking for me.
Well, it started out quite nicely and I was enjoying myself.. then I hit a point where the relationship started to change, and I wasn't quite sure why.... so I have been attempting to make it work for me, painting and repainting, and have finally just decided to let it go and call it finished....If I keep at it I am afraid I will really mess it up..
I have a lot of ideas as to why it "isn't quite there" (for me anyway) so hopefully they will inform me the next time I attempt something similar....This seems to be a part of my process.. Learning by mistakes...wonder what this one will teach me?

And on another note. This sweet kitty ( Tigger) is the source of the occasional cat hairs that find their way onto the paintings ....This wave is oil on aluminum....an experiment with a new surface...Very nice and smooth....Just for fun..