 Its been an incredibly busy time in the studio these past weeks. Springtime is bursting. I'm definitely affected by the light. I work in natural daylight, and there is no question the quality of the light works its way into the paintings. The cool icy blues of my recent paintings are giving way to much warmer brighter colors as springtime unfolds.
I'm developing two new series of paintings, which I'm calling "della terra" and "Calando". There are starting to be enough finished paintings from each series that it will soon be time to update the website with the new work and start getting it out into the world. Pictured here is my studio at the end of clean up after a long day of work. The wall is filling up with works in progress which are at various stages of completion and evaluation. I'm starting to coalesce around this textured body of work and have decided to title the series Della Terra ("of the earth"). There are a lot of earth tones in these paintings, and lots of surface texture as I've described here in earlier postings. In making the paintings with thick paint mixed with wax medium, I often trowel it on in layers, building up color and interest as I go along. Sometimes it almost feels like working with clay (of the earth), another point of reference for the title I've chosen. As the layers build up, I also dig back into them, scrapping away and excavating down into the layers beneath. The mottled results suggestion to me, erosion or old weathered surfaces of stone, as one might find in the landscape. I like this very much and this is also part of the reasoning for the series title. Pictured here, della terra II, 24" x 24", oil on panel.   For me, much of the beauty and excitement in painting is the search for something new. While I definitely build up series of paintings, I'm always pushing further to explore something new, something interesting to me. Curiosity drives it as much as anything else.
Currently I am working on a new series of paintings where the surface texture and the color is central to the work. I've been adding a wax medium to the oil paints, applying lots of contrasting layers, scrapping off, gouging etc, and literally building up a painting over many sessions. I've also just started to combine "finished" panels to see if I can create larger works with interesting combinations and juxtapositions. I have a few of these now which I consider finished, and will be updating the web site soon with this new body of work. Lately I've started to combine many very small panels painted in this textured way, to form elaborate grids. The small panels are actually different depths, which adds another layer of interest to the finished work, making the painting kind of a relief sculpture as well. This is all still being worked out, but right now it is really interesting to me and is starting to take shape. Pictured here are some of the first grid paintings, still works in progress and laid out on the studio floor so I can see how they are shaping up. In the background, larger paintings being built up... and still a ways off from being completed. |
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