Golden

Sometimes I like to cover a canvas with a pattern or texture and then sit back and look at it at different angles and over time. Eventually I start to see something that I like and I work to "pull it out." This is one such canvas - I loved the golden texture I had created and then this face started to appear to me so I helped her along a bit.

New oil

Today I grabbed a 30 x 40 canvas on which I had quickly "sketched" in paint a gestural nude this fall. It was a nice day so I worked outside with the new rich oils I've described before from Blue Ridge. Made a conscious effort NOT to render detail, but to try to keep the looseness of the sketch at the same time experimenting with color and shape. I really like this start...think its almost done - might just go back in and add a little more color to the face and some blue to her left shoulder, but am going to let it sit and look at it again tomorrow with fresh eyes before doing any more.

Sometimes you lose the freshness of the paint if you go back in and mess around too much. We'll see.

Figure painting

Every now and then I join a group of other artists at a local art store to work with a model. Everyone else is drawing in charcoal, but I thought this time I'd play around with working in acrylics directly from life. Here's a quick study from a couple of 20-minute poses...gotta work quickly!

Next in Series

Here's another 30 x 30 in this abstract experimental style I've been working in lately. This one is not quite done, but wanted to show where I was heading...

Back to work

Finally back in the studio this week after a busy holiday season. On Sunday I went to see the exhibit of the Bloomsbury artists at the Nasher Museum at Duke University. Really enjoyed it. Inspired me to loosen up and push the abstraction a bit more - something I've been wanting to do but not quite doing. Here's the best of several tries - this one's really appealing to me...