Latest Chef

Here's here things stand on the "Chef" painting. As you can see, the left side is fairly well developed, while the right side needs more work. I've been trying to train myself to work from left to right to avoid smearing wet paint.

Chef, © 2015

Apples 4, 5 and 6

Here's where some parts of the Arrow of Time series are at present. I worked on numbers 1-6 today; the last three were still drying.

 The Arrow of Time, #s 4, 5, and 6

I've been worried about the way to handle the apple flesh colors, but like every other painting project I've ever worked on, it's just a problem that needs a solution, and usually I work it out. Today it made sense to put three of the panels together at a time and move back and forth from one to another, modifying the colors slightly to reflect the temporal changes. I still have some concerns about the flesh texture, which is going to need some tiny, tiny brush strokes. But we'll see.

Whole Foods Scenario 1

This is the leftmost side of the painting I featured in the last post. Slow going, paint-wise, as always. Lots of precise little lines, shapes, values to be worked on, and at this point some of them need repainting.

Whole Foods, © 2015

Whole Foods

A year and a half ago, I was out with my SO and some friends on a Saturday night in DC. I photographed a lot of shop windows, planning to do some paintings in the Saturday Night series from them, but that series is based on a 16"h x 20"w format. This painting and Chef are both from the night we wandered around the bustling 14th Street area, but they seem to be better suited to the long narrative format.

Whole Foods, © 2015

I like the way the story of ordinary people shopping for food on a Saturday night is told along the set of divided window panels. There are going to be bicycles in the foreground, too. All in all, the painting process has been feeling very comfortable lately.

Finished

It's been a while since I finished a painting, but here's the last of four in the Atlantic Ocean Series, Turquoise Phase. 

 Atlantic Ocean Series, Turquoise Phase #4, © 2015

It feels liberating to have one of the phases done. I took a lot of reference photos in April to round out the next one, the Dawn Phase, so now I can get back to that— I already had finished the first painting in that set.

Delivered

The paintings for the "Imageries From Life" show have been delivered. Everything went smoothly, and now I look forward to SELLING SOME ART. Of course, the Greek crisis may throw a monkey wrench into those plans, just like the shuttering of the government by Congress ruined sales at the Berkeley Gallery show a couple of years ago. Can't I catch a break?

From the show: She Used To Be a Dancer, © Susan La Mont

The Arrow of Time, #s 2 and 9

Some of what I've been working on lately. The background, which is supposed to be wood grain, has been particularly time consuming, what with glazes and painstakingly small brush strokes. The fun part is the apples themselves.

The Arrow of Time, © 2015

Getting Ready to Show

I've been working on The Arrow of Time, but also have had to put in a few hours a day on all of the details involved in getting various upcoming shows off the ground. More details to come.

A Hiatus

I'm back from an out of town trip that took me, mentally, far from the world of painting. Now that I'm home, it's been hard to pick up again where I left off... trying to recall which colors I used on a certain painting, for example, or what deadlines are coming up for shows that I want to enter or am scheduled to deliver paintings to. I think I'd planned to do some touch-up work on a few things once I returned, so I'd better quicken the pace and get to it...

It does seem that after a prolonged absence from painting, I find my work improves somewhat. Why is that?

Anyway, here's the latest work on Chef. Everything that I did today was on the left third of the painting.

Chef, © 2015