Finished. Spent this morning tidying up. I concluded the salt cellar lid and glazed shadows to neutralize some of the blue. I did this to the background as well though it may shop up that way in the photo. I toyed with the cast shadow on the wall and lightened it by scumbling a bit but didn't change it by much. Highlights on the small vase in the background brought it to a finish. It will be on display at Gallery-9 this Saturday. Come take a gander.
Day Two:
(My apologies - this photo was deleted from my files prematurely)
I’ve matched the background and continue to lay in the large Onyx vase. This takes careful observation and, as always, this close looking, examining and considering brings on a meditative state. The swirl of color, the translucence of the stone and the rosy color of the light are hypnotizing. I know some of the values will need to be adjusted. Even the north light from my window shifts as the day progresses. Tomorrow is another day.
Day Three:
The first pass on the large vase is completed. I can see that there are still more value adjustments to make. The light at this hour in the studio is quite magical but eludes me. The vase in the front will also need adjustment. I’m pushing the background towards green. The cool offsets the warms in the vases and pushes them forward. Still much to do.
Day Four:
I took some time off on Saturday to enjoy the beautiful weather. But kept visiting the painting like a sick patient. Today I took to it again. The vase was off kilter so I took out my plumb line and redrew the thing. It sits better now. No longer drunk. I adjusted and conserved values on the vase in order to have highlights show up. Warmed some of the glow with a glaze of coral. The small vase in the foreground also needed adjustment and it too was off center. I needed to make a decision in favor of losing an edge or letting it show. I decided in favor of a slight contrast in value because the asymmetrical design of color created the illusion of it again being out of balance. Same for the smaller vase. I finished the day by laying in the smallest vase in the background. It will need a second pass perhaps tomorrow. I softened edges and toyed with the background and table top before closing. The horizon line needs fixing. The salt cellar and I are old friends. It will go easy and I anticipate being done either tomorrow or Monday. I am, though, considering adding another element. Something living?
Since my beloved uncle passed in November, I have been unable to get into my studio for anything other than teaching. First grief and then the time consuming chores of closing out his apartment and assisting the executor in aspects of his estate have kept me in a state that swung from sadness to confusion to numbness. Then came the holidays. I don't need to explain what that was like.
When I first got the phone call from his guardian that said he was in the hospital, I was in my studio engrossed in a painting that I had envisioned for a long time. I put my paints away, cleaned my brushes and immediately left for Seattle. I was with him for three days in the hospital before he passed. And since that telephone call until two weeks ago, I was just unable to get back to the painting.
When I finally did, I was sure that I had gone cold on it and would not be able to finish. But I persevered and I'm glad I did. As the work progressed, I found myself pulled back into the canvas and in a dialogue with the painting that pushed and pulled me in a new direction. I insisted on painting it one way and it insisted I try another approach. We compromised and the final result is a kind of détente.I hope you like it.
"White Lace"
Oil on Canvas
40" x 30"
The new year started with a whimper for me. I had all kinds of plans to do all kinds of new stuff but it all just seemed to evaporate with a puff of smoke. It may be that I have been focusing on my Magick stuff too much these days. My brain seems to be someplace else and despite lots and lots of meditation and other good mind stuff, my brain seems to have taken a vacation. I believe my teachers would say I need to work on grounding. OK, OK, I’m listening.
"Cityscape", 20" x 31 1/4", Oil on Linen
True, I had a video to produce on my Atelier class and that took some time and energy, but hey, I wasn’t the one editing it. My videographer was. But that’s another story. I’ll post the video after this post. I did manage to start another painting for the new year and I’m pretty satisfied that I came close to my vision for it. Lots of ideas are swimming around my head so maybe all that meditation did something after all. I wanted to do a still life that had a feeling of abstract work. Well, not fully abstract. I am a representational painter after all. But I always say that a good realist painting has at it’s oily heart a good abstract design. So that’s what I was aiming for. I made the objects larger than they are in life and the painting measures 30 1/4″ by 20″ which is big for a still life. Anyway, here’s the painting and I hope you like it as much as I do.
