early morning painting

sharing a little early morning painting..............................................................

I plan to further the figure/ground distinctions once this dries a little.

the weekend round up

Best in Show Brief

This weekend was the opening for the group show, 100% Pure Florida at Fifth Ave Gallery in Melbourne Florida. At the opening reception my paintings were awarded Best in Show. The prize is a solo show in June at the gallery. Needless to say, I am very excited and honored (and ready to get back into the studio).

I want to thank all of my family and friends for coming out to support me during the opening reception.  And to give a very special thank you to Marc Stone, who is the best friend and personal cheering section a girl could ask for.

Here are two images of the paintings in the show:

at the lake, oil on panel, 12"x 36"

at the lake, detail

late summer, oil on panel, 9" x 12"

In other news my dear friend, Marcie Paper's work is up in Richmond VA at 1708 Gallery. She is an amazing artist so check out her stuff! 

mark making

Mark Making is looming large on my mind recently. It may be the most influential way that paintings define themselves in relation to other forms of image making. I am obsessed with trying to create "noise" with my marks that fuse the figure and ground to each other. This idea relates to the scene in I Heart Huckabees where Dustin Hoffman's nose begins to disintegrate into small squares of space. 

       

A couple of recent head studies exploring mark, each painting is 7" x 5".

16" x 20"

Another beach painting that I may have completed in 1 session, please let that be true. 

And once again small shifts in these two ongoing paintings, I think both are done.

24" x 36"

3' x 4'

tcb

With school starting in exactly one week, I am trying to keep everything together! This means integrating painting into a life of planning and paper work. With that said I made a some changes to two paintings yesterday. I have made small changes to both of the above and painted a tiny 5"x7" self-portrait.  I promised myself I would post tonight so those shifts will have to wait for another day.


Sometimes I feel like I am going in circles, or more accurately painting the same painting to repaint it again...and with that, this image is the latest in the ole' backyard drama.

for those of you who don't remember, this a brief history of this crazy painting

  

  

In other news the big painting is still moving along. At this point it's just about small steps to make everything feel right. I say that in the hopes that moving my mother's arm will be the last major shift to take place.

modifications

it's funny how a small statement can have such a large impact....

Yesterday my friend and colleague Leslie Robison (check out her work here) was over at my house for a dog romp and boy video game session (my husband and her two kids).

On her way out, we stepped into my studio. We both agreed that the picnic table was the best part of the painting, and she made a comment about it looking wet. That statement, plus a crazy 3am realization that I needed to make bolder choices in terms of color, account for some of the changes that I made today. The figures still need some work, but I am much more excited about the reflective nature of the light at this point. Thank you Leslie!

On a side note (or on the side of an envelope), here is a little sketch of Marc sleeping after dinner the other night.

working to avoid working

With school fast approaching, I am squeezing in as much studio time as possible.
Here is a quick update:

I feel good about the preparatory drawing at this point, the entire process of working larger is really exciting. I owe Marcie Paper a thank you for reminding me that I can paint large, if I decide to, THANK YOU MARCIE! If you don't know her work please check out Marcie's beautiful paintings and animations here. I also wanted to post an image of Euan Uglow's work, a book of his paintings is currently open in my studio.

Prep Work

After completing my most recent painting, the ever changing backyard, I came to several conclusions. In efforts to work larger, the backyard piece is 30" x 24" (and I want to make another 4'x3' painting), I realized the need for more preparation. Working out the composition and lighting becomes much more problematic when the paintings grow in scale. This conclusion, is due in part to an effort not to waste the entire $30 37ml tube of Cadmium Yellow in a green that will get covered up the next day! However, it also comes from always wanting to get to the fun part by habitually skipping the necessary preliminary steps to painting (cleaning brushes, cleaning the palette, etc). With all of this said, I am stepping back in order to step forward. Yesterday I spent several hours working on a small sketch for a future painting (hopefully it will come to life on the 4' x3' canvas sitting in my living room). I am trying to work out the big picture prior to applying the paint, and I will let you know if this is actually helpful. I know that at times lots of planning in art-making gets thrown out the window once the process starts.

model paintings

So after taking the weekend off, I am back in the studio. Marc and I are dog sitting for a week so I had a little extra canine company in the studio today.

In painting news, I may have finished the backyard painting once and for all (although the white dress in the shadow may need to be taken down a notch). In between now and the last post I totally destroyed the figure on the far left and enlarged the girl whose dress may be too white. 

Then on a whim I made a couple of changes to darken and solidify some areas on a painting that was, and is again, sitting on the finished wall. 

With these paintings in mind, I would like to address the elongated figures that seem to occupy my fictional/altered worlds. I typically free-hand draw when painting, incorporating several photographs together, and because of certain tendencies my figures always become stretched. This occurrence does not bother me on a regular basis, but I have been thinking about influences. My first thoughts went to artists who have the same tendency.... El Greco and Velazquez....

but then it occurred to me that this tendency is most likely due to looking at fashion images everyday.

So....models of the fashion industry, my elongated figures salute you tonight, thanks for your influence... or on the other hand maybe they should just thank the old world painters. 

making headway

As a naturally doubtful person, the recent positive feedback (which I am very thankful for) on the small works from life made me start to second guess my family/photographic-based work. This act forced me to compare the two, and as a result several differences became apparent which I am working on reconciling. One, in the backyard painting I was losing the shifts in value and chroma that would help to define space. Two, mark making (easier on a 2" x 3" space, tiny marks=large marks) was getting lost, so I  solidified the paint into bolder decisions and larger marks today.  Finally, after painting my dog twice (the first two times I have ever attempted so) I decided that both practices inform and enhance each other... or that is my cop-out so I can do both with some self assurance. NOW FOR THE EVIDENCE!

2"x 3" oil on panel

4" x 6" oil on linen

30" x  24", oil on canvas, unfinished

another day spent in the studio....some results. I think that the backyard painting is moving in the right direction now, but still needs work. It is funny how a painting can seem almost finished with one mark, and then fall apart two marks later. Regardless this work is a juicy mess and really needs to dry for a day or so (we will see if I let it). In other news I painted a 2"x 3" self-portrait in the hour before Marc got home. As mentioned above, I should have left it with one final mark but instead kept working and it is less clear, and a lot more muddy, than it was around 5:15.

painting vs. life/life vs. painting

Because most of my paintings are basically excuses to be around images of my mother, it can be difficult to recognize when she is the figure not working in a painting. It seems counter intuitive to fight the paint, and her image, when the entire point of making the painting is to create new moments with her in my life. But maybe that actually means that this process is more true to life then I would have initially thought. Every relationship has its off days, so maybe I am just fighting with my mom through this process(it would have to happen if she was still alive). Regardless, I took out the seated figure and am going to replace it with my mother's back andtwo other women. Hopefully this way she will get to be in the painting after all. I will update more tomorrow with better pictures and hopefully more clarity to the figures.

the good the bad and the ugly

After not getting to paint in a couple of days, I just worked in the painting vacuum (that time suck where nothing is getting accomplished and yet you can't seem to stop screwing up your painting or just repainting the same square inch over and over and over). So for what seemed to be no time, and yet an eternity, I just repainted my mother's head in the most recent backyard painting. It's a tricky one, and it's going to have to dry before I get it right. It is safe to say that not everyday in the studio yields strong results. Regardless, I think it only fair to share a very mediocre progress report.

the source

head at the beginning of trying to stop and take a progress photo

final head of the day, because we are supposed to leave for Melbourne now

a couple of updates from yesterday...

Since many of the color decisions from my recent paintings have been completely invented, I thought some life studies would help me find some new color mixes. So yesterday morning I sat on my new backyard patio and painted my very overgrown backyard. The painting is only 2" x 3", but it was a ton of fun. There is something so enthralling about life painting, it feels like a higher stakes game.

Later in the day, I worked more on my ongoing backyard and beach paintings. Also, since I posted the painting of my grandmother on the beach two days ago, I was compelled to modify her face slightly (I think for the best).

Update #1:

Today I had a little company from my studio mate, Shelby, who is going to be 6 in August. I also worked more on the second backyard painting and started a new painting from a collection of Myrtle Beach photographs. It seems a bit ridiculous that I am painting the beach again when I never seem to get there. On a positive studio note, I have decided that my level of tan is directly correlated to the amount of painting I am accomplishing. Speaking of which I will attach one more image of a beach painting completed earlier this summer.

Two paintings that are in progress:

I think that the top one may be done, but time will only tell if I mess with it more.

The top painting is oil on linen measuring 16" x 20".

The lower painting (which is very much in process) measures 24"x 30", both were created from a collection of photographs (as seen above the painting) from my maternal grandparents backyard.

In an effort to take more studio documentation, I am starting a blog. Hopefully this process will allow me to work through ideas and paintings with a little help from the internet.

THANKS BLOGS of the world.