This small painting of the May River and marshes at high tide captured the scene and the moment pretty well without overdoing it. It was my first time using the great new Holbein gouache paints that I received got as a gift last Christmas. They are really wonderful to use compared to the cheap-o stuff i was working with earlier. There is enough pigment to do supple washes and also highly saturated or deep parts. The layering is divine..
May River Marshes. Gouache on Paper, 2020
I really enjoy the act of creating observation work in nature. It helps focus my attention on the beauty and complexity of the world around me. This Palmetto tree is one of the more complex things i’ve attempted to draw recently and I like it.
Just above the tree line on the trail to Chasm Lake. 24×18 inches, acrylic on paper.
Has it really been nearly four months since I started this painting? In this period of quarantine stress, lockdowns, social upheaval, and massive shifts in my daily life, I have been without the motivation to paint. Like a fool who has learned nothing about self-motivation I have waited to feel it again. But for me, action precedes inspiration and motivation. Surprise, surprise… just getting started was all I needed to reconnect. Returning to painting has returned me to painting.
Gestural landscape practice. 1 pass, 24 x 18 inches.
Working on freeing myself up a bit more, so I’m going to be making some low-risk, low-stakes landscapes on paper. I have some ideas about what i’ll do with these but I’ll discuss that when I actually do something. I’m thinking this needs one more pass before calling it “done.” This scene is inspired by a photograph I took on my hike to Chasm Lake, just after climbing above the treeline.
Above Sky Pond, 2020. 22 x 15 Inches. Acrylic, pencil, ink, and resin on wood.
I am very pleased with how this painting turned out. There was a very real risk of overworking it and I managed to avoid that. I am still thinking about what i’ve learned with this painting, and I’ll probably have to consolidate those thoughts into another post.
Wild Basin, near Copeland Falls. 7 x 5 inches. Acrylic, pencil, paper, and ink on wood. 2020
Painted over another old abstract print/painting from 2002. I am very happy with how this painting turned out. I’m just beginning to identify the conditions that are making for enjoyable painting experiences with quality outcomes.
The scene is somewhere along the trail to Ouzel Falls from the Wild Basin trailhead in Estes Park. If memory serves, this spot is not far above Copeland Falls.
Everything about this roughly two hour painting session felt good. It had its ups and downs but more often than not I was experiencing a flow state. I succeeded in not overworking anything, and I now have a clear vision of where this painting will end. I am toying with a tone change in the sky but I want to add the foreground elements before changing anything.
one thing that has been working well when my intention is to paint looser and more intuitively is to put on improvisational jazz music. The last couple of painting sessions were powered by Makaya McCraven. Something about the groove and the open ended improvisation really helps me get out of my head and paint more by feel.
I was finishing up sanding a few freshly primed wood supports when I came across an old project I started about two years ago. I had cut up the solid wood top of an unused drawing table to use part of it for another project and was left with a 22×15 inch panel that seemed to have potential. I decided to use wood carving tools to carve a series of grooves into the wood, then pushed magenta ink into those cracks and wiped the top surface down (kind of like inking an etching). I then filled the cracks and covered the entire surface with about 1/8 inch of resin. This is where i stopped (my original plan was to layer further groove/fills, but I put the panel aside).
Upon seeing that board again, i had an urge to paint over it because i’ve found that starting with an old painting seems to work well for me right now. I took the panel outside and sanded the resin down to a paintable surface with 150 grit, wiped off all the dust, then got busy.
Using a photo I took from above Sky Pond, I started with a pencil sketch. Feeling the momentum, I decided to white out the sky as a base, then make some green marks. I really like where this is headed, it’s got a lot of potential and it feels right.
First pass, painting a view from above Sky Pond in Estes Park, Colorado. Grooves and paint filled with resin, 2018 Carved grooves in wood, then filled with magenta paint, 2018Leave a Comment
River Through Mountains. 8 x 8 inches, acrylic on wood.
I decided to relieve myself of the impulse to make another tonal, semi-representative work by forcing myself to work with a non-representative palette. I painted this over three sessions and I feel pretty good about it. The one thing i really learned while painting this is how much the music i’m listening to influences my approach to making marks.
I struggled quite a bit at first to get into a flow with this painting. Zion was also painting in the studio next to me and I let him pick the music. It was a great mix, but around halfway through the session some kind of more improvisational jazz type of music started playing and the groove and the energy of the music started influencing my painting. Zion noticed it too and commented on it. I’m going to start to experiment with different music as i continue this painting practice. There is really something here to use.
In my second sitting with this painting I brought in the sky and sea, and I have to say that it was thoroughly enjoyable and I like the outcome. In particular, I love this section of the shoreline. I’m making a conscious effort to evoke the essence of the scene without getting too precious.
sea detail. this part is my favorite so far2. sky and seaLeave a Comment
Started a new painting last night. I had intended to do the same scene again but after making that little waterfall painting the other night, I changed my mind. Gotta move on. I’ll be painting more loosely and following my intuition.
