Blue Dawn

This is from this morning's walk with the dog, on the bank of the Willamette at George Rogers Park.  The light was wonderful and rich and moody, the river was high, silent and flat with no wake or wave to interupt the calm.  We had a good time there, Greta and I, letting our souls link with Grand Nature, updating our moods like new software for the Iphone.  

In an effort to recycle old canvases, I have been painting over old work.  When I have small boards under 11x14, I will normally use paint off my palette to give a solid coat of a random color and then let it dry, ready for use.  But when it is a larger canvas, like this 20x16 above, I tend to paint directly on the old work, making the underpainting a little difficult, since so much reads through from below.  But I charged ahead in this case, trying to use a little heavier application than I normally use to get the thing done in one sitting, rather than waiting to let the underpainting dry.  So it came out a little choppy for my taste, but I was really trying to see if the overall effect was going to be what I was after; call it a larger color study.  As usual, the photo distorts the color a little, but I think I might revisit this one at some point to make it more finished.

It isn't often that I don't find my work wanting in some aspect or other, but this above portrait of Javier Bardem is something I futzed with over a couple of hours and it's just fine the way it is, for a notebook sketch.  I love his nose and his expressive eyes, so heavy-lidded and relaxed.  He would be fun to paint from life.

And yet another study of Oswego Creek, endlessly complex and changeable.

Looking Forward

 The next couple of paintings are works in progress in search of a different direction.  Sometimes I just follow a path not knowing where it is going, but like a rat in a maze, I seem to encounter a lot of dead ends.

Turkeys

Dark Water, Bright Light

8x10 oil

Lately I have struggled with painting, producing turkeys - whether from a lack of enthusiasm for my results, general ennui surrounding the coming months of rain, or maybe just the heavy anchor of inescapable aging.  Whatever the reasons, it is discouraging to feel not just a lack of progress, but a loss of ground I thought I had gained.  This feeling is compounded when I do a little straightening up and encounter the stacks of failed and miserable canvases and panels that I know I should just paint over and ready for a new attempt, but then the idea of having those dozens and dozens of waiting canvases seems too great a burden, and so things are just rearranged, old work stacked like cordwood.  This piece above feels a little like a success (I am happy with the tones, the composition, the original idea and the mood) but it lacks finesse and feels clunky in the brushwork.  It was a departure from my normal process: I worked mostly with the panel on a table instead of upright on an easel, and I tried to work up a soupy underpainting into which I could add delicate passages.  But as often happens with me, I get caught up in color, or temperature, or some other specific element and my brushwork becomes crude and unpleasant.  I think I could have gone back into this one after the paint had a chance to set up just enough to be blended or modeled to improve things, but unfortunately Life got in the way and by the next day things were dry and it was too late to make those kinds of improvements.  

What I often do when I hit these walls is just keep plugging away, doing portrait sketches in notebooks, honing the ability to quickly capture likeness, hoping against hope that the miles of brushwork will eventually lead down a path with a pot of gold at the end.  What is my destination?  Why, again, am I devoting so much of my waking life to painting?  My intention was never to become a "painter"; Originally, I simply wanted to get better at occasional painting so that when the mood struck I could entertain myself and end up with something good enough to hang and announce "There, I dabble."  But as I encounter the endless challenges, all the things one must learn, I am caught up in the struggle, I love the mental exercise, and I especially love the way my eyes and mind are awakened to the beauty that surrounds me in ways uncommon to the average Joe.  Painting is a beautiful way of being.  I feel it keeps me connected with a better way of living - with attention and focus and purpose.  It is a meditation, a spiritual quest, and I am as unlikely to give up on it as one is unlikely to walk away from a religion.  But I suppose that doesn't mean there won't be times where I question the existence of God, where I wonder if I will ever bust through these walls.  

One of the many sketches I have worked on recently.  I am playing with the ability to arrive at likeness by using various beginnings; this one was started with a big brush and broad plains of dark and light, avoiding all detail at first, slowly pushing paint around to arrive at a face.  I now have three notebooks of multimedia paper that I first gesso so that I can work in oil without the paint being sucked into the paper.  It keeps me from worrying that they need to be anything other than what they are - practice - and it also is a tidy way of keeping track, a record of my journey that doesn't have to be stacked up in a corner.  

And sometimes Nature is just beautiful in a way that doesn't lend itself to being captured on canvas and I need to learn that that is okay, too.

Where the Wild Things Are

Summer is gone and the vivid natural growth fades, but the colors left behind are far from drab.  Even as the days grow shorter, and the skies are often gray and overcast, there come moments of clarity, light streaming through, exposing the wildness of the color all around.  It is more of a challenge to capture the essence, with cold and rain intervening, but the goal is never to give up.  Inspiration comes in fits and spurts, and maybe there is more quiet time in the studio working over old ideas, or old faces.

Along the Columbia River, at the confluence of the Sandy, what is called The Thousand Acre Dog Park provides endless opportunities to discover the muted and tender colors of autumn as the trees give up their summer garb and go into hibernation.  There are lessons to be learned in mixing grays.

The delicacy of these colors is compelling, and I struggle to find a way to convey them, lacking the very light touch needed.