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Posts Tagged ‘Canvas’

A Little More Progress

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged Canvas, Obsessionism, Painting, technique on February 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I thought I would show a bit more of the large canvas I’m working on at the moment. As I’ve described in previous posts, it’s a 54″ tall by 84″ wide canvas that has been biding its time for nearly 10 months in my studio, waiting for me to finally give it some life. Well, it’s beginning to take shape and I can see better its final stages, if things work out as I hope.

I’m always a little hesitant to show these pieces in progress because sometimes they lack the life that the final stages of the process bring. But even though there is still a lot of depth to be added, this piece is gaining animation quickly. It’s been interesting seeing how the colors of the fields have changed as other colors are added in the process, some of the reds and oranges that seemed to jump off the canvas modulated in intensity by adding varied shades of green and yellows.

I’ve brought the sky to a certain point where it creates enough ambiance that I can be influenced by it but is not yet at its final intensity. I see a certain blue in my mind that will be a challenge to pull off here but at least it is there now, pulling at my mind.

The same goes for the great black void that is a lake in the center of the canvas. I see a certain color and depth ahead for this critical part of the composition, which is the focal point for the whole thing, everything else revolving around and reacting to it. The overall strength of this painting is dependent on my ability to recreate the color that I see in my mind for this section. If I don’t reach that visualized color, what could be a very good painting could become a ho-hum piece. As a result, my mind is always running through methods of achieving that color even while I am at work on other parts of the painting.

Today should be a pivotal day for the bigger part of the composition, as I finish up this layer of color on the landscape and begin adding what may be the final layer for some parts of it. The composition should really come together at this point, just waiting for that color in the lake.

We shall see.

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Foundation: Update

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged Asheville, Canvas, Foundation, Haen Gallery on November 3, 2008| 1 Comment »

A while back I had a post titled “Foundation” (October 13, 2008) that showed a prepared canvas and briefly explained how I prepared the surface for painting. I promised to show the piece when it was finished and here it is:

This is a 24″ high by 48″ wide canvas. You can see the texture I talked about earlier in the sky, even on this small image. This piece doesn’t have a title yet. Sometimes it takes a while to arrive at a title and other times it pops out. This is a pretty large painting and I’m holding off on naming it as I think it deserves something special, something fitting the time in which it was created.

I have a method for naming work that requires that I pretend that the work is not mine and I’ve stumbled across the painting at garage sale, maybe fifty years in the future. I look quickly at it and try to assess it and determine if it has something of value in it, something that separates it and gives it some type of life of its own. Then I try to grab a first impression of what feeling it conveys and go from there with a title. It sounds kind of goofy but I find it works for me.

This piece (with a title!) will be at the Haen Gallery show in Asheville.

Quick Update: I am leaning toward a title – ” Toward Possibility”. I’ll live with this piece for a few weeks in the studio and make a final determination. If anyone has any feelings on this, let me know. I think this is a really dynamic piece and deserves a fitting name.