Broken Shell

Ink on paper

Did this last week along with several others I'll post sometime.

Quick charcoal portrait

Charcoal and pastel on paper
18" x 24"

Finis with report/Just pictures from here on out!

Untitled
Charcoal and pastel
18" x 24"

I like this; I wouldn't post it if I didn't.  Someday soon I'm going to pick a bunch of stuff I don't care for and post it!!  I know the value to me could be different than what others might think.
Anyway, I've done lots over the past few months and am pushing ahead with things I've not shown.  Unemployment has the dividend of allowing more studio time.

Report: Page Eight

Charcoal and pastel on paper
18" x 24"

Report: Page Seven (Is this all you've done all summer?!)

Untitled
Watercolor/charcoal/gouache on paper
18" x 24"

Haven't been here for a few days.  Away at the beach gathering shell subjects and swimming, reading and doing some occasional sketchbook drawings.  The picture above was done maybe in June I think.  On a side note I've become (this will be of no interest to anyone I imagine-so the self assessment which follows must be proof positive of its accuracy) a Morrissey fan to the exclusion of just about all other music I listen to while working.  Who does that other than an obsessive, groupie sort of personality which I fear, at my "advanced age", I have become!!  Wish I had discovered him and The Smith's twenty-plus years ago!
On the subject of painting, particularly the piece above, I'm reminded to suggest to myself again and again:  "thing slowly, paint fast".

Report: Page Six

This is cheating a bit I think.  I posted the outside of the oyster shell a few days ago...the astute observer will now know that I cropped the image and I should have indicated "detail" in the first instance.  Artistic wise guy, huh?  And, this image is of an 18" x 24" piece....the "outside" of the shell show below cropped from and not actually on that size sheet.  I'll be much more careful in the future!!

Report: Page Five

Untitled
Oil on canvas
36" x 24"

This is something I'm still working on.  Started it about a month ago, maybe more recently and I plan to work on it today.

Report: Page Four

12" x  12"
Oil on canvas

Report: Page Three (Bored?)

Pastel and charcoal on paper
18" x 24"

Oyster shell retrieved from the beach.

Report: Page Two

Pastel and charcoal on paper
18" x 24"

Pastel and charcoal on paper
18" x 24"

Yesterday I took about 50 photographs of new work and a few pieces which still need some effort.  Enough of a supply that I'll be posting for the next two weeks!

Report: Page One

Untitled/Unfinished!
Oil on canvas
48" x 36"

Ok, so here it goes.  I'm feeling like I want to publish these, although at least the work above is, sad to say, a continuing work in progress. I'll search through my computer collection of images and see if I can locate some earlier versions of this.  It is, I feel, productive to look at the path a piece takes.  Doing this work without tracing the evolution almost denies the process.  Well, maybe that's a bit strong but picture making for me is a process containing (hopefully) a  gradual recognition of what's going on, sort of.  I search through planes of balance, symmetry, color and sometimes symbol. This is what this is right now!

Untitled/Unfinished
Oil on canvas
48" x 36"

 

Well, this one is in the same category as her partner...except that it has a lot less activity in terms of floating objects with rough similarity to flowers and leaves in addition to flowing ball bearings.  I think I know where I'm headed, visually speaking, with this.  Symbolically, well that's maybe a different story.  Just another Venus?  I see her that way but she's coiled, almost avoiding discovery, floating and not attached.........

Two "modernist" landscape inspired pictures are below.  The horizon with the hills challenged me and in a flourish last week I made changes I think resolve it.  Anyway, I'm going to hang it over the living room sofa!

The rising horizon looks almost a tropical setting but the inspiration was a trip to the hill town of Conway.  Actually finished it a few months ago; just got around to taking this photograph today!

 Untitled
Oil on canvas
18" x 24"

Untitled
Oil on canvas
24" x 36"




Lastly (for today/Page 2 tomorrow!) something I worked on for over a year before sorting it out. 

Untitled
Oil on board
16" x 20"

  

Summer Report

Gouache and watercolor on board

Gouache and watercolor on board

These two pieces are from work I did early in the spring of this year.  I actually don't have any photos of what I have spent my time on since then.....but I hope to remedy that in a few days!  I finished an oil figure, the oil landscape that was so problematic for such a long time and have continued with three (3) large figurative pieces and an abstracted (sort of) floral-stimulated "design", all with oil.  If I can get my act together this weekend I'll photograph them all as well as several to many charcoal/gouache/watercolor works on paper around which I seem to do the canvas work.  I'll reserve making an observation on the productive use of my time until I've posted again.  So until then, the Summer Report is incomplete.  Come back soon!!