Officially fall

Near Conway, Massachusetts
Oil on canvas
24" x 36"

I've fussed with this picture for so long....well maybe eight or nine months...that I think I just have to stop.  While on a drive last October I stumbled upon some really pretty scenery in Conway, took lots of photos and did maybe a dozen oil and watercolor pieces, including this.  It is the largest and for that reason, perhaps, it has occupied my attention far more than any of the others.  Maybe it looks that way?  Has had too much attention?  Not really sure it's integrated and balanced well; some of the phrases maybe don't go with others.....the foreground is maybe in a different "language"?  An artist friend, whose opinion I value, offered early on in my work on this that it looked like three pictures!  I think I've reduced it to no more than two!

Competent(?)/Competition(!)

In a bold move (for me) I chose these six images to submit to
a regional, museum-sponsored, competition for selection to a group exhibition to take place later this year.  The application required that I give them "titles" (!), provide their dimensions (!) , put them on a CD at 100 dpi (?) and label them in a digital code as jpg's from me.  Oh, and if I wanted, provide an artist's statement.  Much more exhausting than the actual painting process...one that depletes energy rather than cranks it!
If someone likes these that would be great.  I know that I do!

Having a difficult time with this

Too tight, bland without any snap, so I'll put it aside for a bit and get back to it later.

Landscape

Oil on canvas
12" x 12"

Since having this photographed I have made several minor changes, primarily in the foreground but also the middle row of trees.  I guess that would make this posting that of a "work in progress" as it were but now I've got it done....I just don't have a photo!
Journal:  I spent almost six hours in my studio today painting and listening to football.  I paid attention to each play as it was called and gave less thought to specific brush marks.....pulled color from a slightly distracted "inspiration" and worked with reference to a drawing and a photograph.  Line and energy were the important criteria, color too but less thought went into color selection.  Once I got moving I couldn't stop.  I've got four pieces in process of completion right now and am anxious to get started on two or three larger works I have general ideas about. I keep studying my work so see where it is going, where I am going with it.  Landscapes and figures becoming less real, more expressive; more in the direction of unfiltered responses to what I'm feeling and seeing; using less and less organizational judgment and looking for balance and rhythm, things I always knew marked good work.