Wednesday, August 26, 2009

pink cloud tracing paper

Sometimes, life just isn't fair.

Before summer began, I spent over two months working on the same painting. It barely budged. I would constantly work, re-work, and re-adjust on the same canvas - which is a terrible ordeal for the same piece of fabric when working with oil. I could never settle on a color scheme, nor an image itself. This is the type of thing that misdirects my ambition the most.

However, freakishly, today I nearly finished two in two hours.


Where is the justice?

I only have one real explanation for such ordeals:

Normally, I'll enter the studio with an idea in mind. Seeing as I predominantly work in landscape, I'll have an idea for color schemes, cloud shapes, and terrain. Some days, like today, are just considered "Hail Mary's". That's when you take everything you thought of before hand and just throw it out the window.

I had a very shape-shifting talk with MB one day, about a year ago. I was yammering about my approach to painting and how, if I don't know something, I do my research. If I'm ignorant to a fact, it would usually induce a big coffee, a big walk, and a big read. I'd never leave anything to chance. I would examine every approach (even chemically, at times), study color wheels and different brush strokes before I even thought of touching oil again.

I'd heard everything she was saying before, but really did need to hear it again.

There are times, artistically, when you really need to let things take their course. This afternoon, for instance, my nose never left the surface of the canvas. I threw every tendency to reevaluate the piece out the window, and let imagination take it's course. Colors shifted seamlessly. Blending happened naturally. I should have prefaced this article by saying that landscape artwork is vastly subjective. I once asked my friend Scott (way back) how to paint proper clouds, to which he answered "there is no real way to do it". I took that advice very literally, and decided to base an entire series of work based off that statement.


I am currently working on Absolute Nothings . This series will be in the works for the next few months, and will combine ideas from past works, with a slight twist. I'll keep you all posted on the progression, which may be a long time coming considering there is mathematical research involved.

ps. Flash portfolio website is in the works.

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