New Artworks

 I haven't posted about artworks here in quite some time, have I?  Well, I've been busy making new works, but you don't want to see most of it.  Or, rather, I don't want ANYbody to see most of it.

Much of my work over the past year has been an experiment of some sort or another.  It was about time for me to do something that was less an experiment and more of a "just me" approach.  This was the result.  I used a much looser approach than in other recent works, letting the brush strokes pile up.  So on one hand it's a young woman, on another it's a mood, and on another it's all about paint.  After all the other types of styles I've tried recently, it was like coming home again.  Except I really haven't named this one yet ... maybe "Muse"?  It's small, 12x12, oil on panel.

Here's one of the earlier experiments:

I carefully developed this one in a drawing, gridded it up onto an 18x24 canvas, and worked up the image.  And wasn't quite happy with it.  It seemed a bit dead, or overworked.  Maybe I was too careful in both the drawing and painting.  So I took another 18x24 canvas and painted it again:

This was done very differently.  I didn't grid up anything: just grabbed a brush, loaded it with paint, and started blocking it in, then refining it as the image developed.  Hard to see in this photo, but the brushwork is livelier and looser and the painting as a whole has a spark to it that the first one doesn't have.  Why?  Maybe because it was less about "getting it right" and more about "letting it live".  So I'm happy with #2, but #1 has a date with a can of oil primer so I can have a blank canvas again.

I just signed the newest painting yesterday:

"Missing Model", oil on canvas, 24"x30".  Pretty much sums up a figurative artist's life for the past year, doesn't it?  

So what's next?  Well, I have two ideas ready to go.  Will get started on one of them tomorrow.  And in two weeks, I'll be working on another wedding painting again.  Can't wait!