More summer work

Charcoal and pastel on paper/18"x 24"

My summer work included many drawings; here's an example.

Whelk

11" x 14" oil on board

Over the summer I've been working on a series of paintings of sea shells...some broken, some completely intact...all specimens I found on the beach near Buzzards Bay.  The shells just appeal to me and they are great subjects in that they just simply hold a pose!  Don't know if anyone will be interested in them but I'm pushing ahead and hope to complete about twenty of them.

Charcoal and pastel on paper/18" x 24"/2014

This working in visual art is like archeology on some level. An exploration, inside/outside adventure to realms which are at once distant and proximate.  When I did this many months ago I recall I began the process trying to access what was before me.  The pose was interesting with some turns and bends that challenged my ability to represent the structure of it.  It was done fairly quickly and suspends that moment of quiet, peace, contemplation and beauty.....or so I think

Thoughts

My studio time has been frequent these last couple of months although something other than art always seems to call for my attention.  Keeps you grounded, I guess.
Working on a series of oils depicting shells.  Generally small pieces but 20 or so in some stage of completion.  Very fun. 
I've been engaged with the ocean and the stuff that appears on the shore for as long as I can remember.  As a child on Good Harbor beach in Gloucester I can recall swimming to retrieve long, long strands of floating seaweed (kelp?), thick and flexible looking like huge pieces of tan undulating pasta and pulling it along the edge of the sand where it just met the water, swinging it just above the surface a little like a whip.  Shells seem to have caught my attention later as I probed the sand, sifting and searching for the tiniest spiraled remnants of former sea creature habitation.  Whatever the activity, being on that ocean edge and examining what the sea tossed up and maybe pulled back only to redeposit was and remains a commitment.
In fact, just a few days ago I retrieved some sort of plastic coated metal object that maybe was used for holding bait and was put over the side of a boat to attract fish....something to hold bait other than a hook.  Fascinating to me far more so than actually using it...fishing never appealed to me just the archeological shoreline searching.
Edges, margins, spaces, time, replacement or regeneration.  I like feel comfortable being aware of those things perhaps more so than abandoning myself to a fuller participation in other activities.
Here's an image of Gloucester I did in 2000.  It's hanging in a home in the Midwest.

18" x 24"/pastel on paper

 

 

Oil figure/portrait

c.18" x 24"/oil on canvas/2013

This is one of those paint-overs I do far too frequently or so I feel.  Maybe if I could afford to keep a flow of materials headed to my work space I'd be less inclined to re-use what I consider failed on some level.  Anyway, here it is for what it is.

Broken Whelk/2014

c. 3" x 7"/ink on paper

I'm working on a series of smaller (12" to 24" on the longest side) oil pictures of shells I've scavenged on my frequent trips to the family house on Buzzards Bay this summer.  As part of the exercise, I've done many ink drawings trying to learn about the subject and how to represent the curves and more or less simple complexity of the objects....the features I most appreciate.  These whelk shells are the most difficult to understand and render and finding an intact one on the rocky stretch of beach I wander is a rare occurrence.
So, I've completed four pieces and am well into the fifth.  Whelks in various stages of fractured status have been the subjects so far but I'm going to move on to oysters and clams next.  The image below is my rendition of an oyster shell.  More later!

6" x 9"/ink on paper

More abstract

Gouache, watercolor, graphite, pastel on foam board.