Another in the Column Series

Or maybe the pink bathrobe series. Or the Trailer Series, of which it would be the last. 16"W x 18"H, oil on linen.

Polarizing

A polarizing filter on the lights as well as the lens (no change to the painting). The face has one more layer of paint on it than the neck area, which is shinier. I think this trick will make a difference in photographing paintings that have opaque color painted into glazes--in photos the opaque paint seems to float above the glaze, whereas in real life there is a more subtle optical mixing going on.

Tabletop Fog

WIP, oil on linen on panel, 16"W x 20"H. Not the real title (it has none so far), but I like the unfinished hand lost in some otherworldly realm. Still a way to go.

Black vs. White

Friday evening, between some heavy downpours, we went to the opening reception at Robert Lange Studios for the show Black vs. White. A good though incongruous omen for the show was the brief appearance of a rainbow just as we turned onto Queen St. The theme, or conceit, was to have many of the gallery artists and several invitees create pairs of paintings contrasting black and white. There were some very lovely works--Robert Lange's play on Ceci n'est pas une pipe, Kirsten Moran's tiny Greek goddesses, Megan Aline's Whisper and Hum. (I am, not surprisingly, drawn to small pieces.) There is always good painting to be seen at this gallery and I always enjoy and am energized by a visit there. The featured painters are generally young, the paintings crisp and competent, and there's just enough of a whiff of whimsy for lightness. These artists, and the gallery owners, are having fun while they're working very hard.

(And check out the photos from the opening: who's that famous artist in the first one?)

The Re-Do

In the last couple of weeks, as I finally get out from under the last of the move, I've pulled out the unfinished or problem pieces and tried to make some decisions about them. A couple were, I decided, unsalvageable--generally something basic was wrong with the concept or the composition--and those I recoated with a gray ground. It can be a grand relief to make a bad painting simply go away.

Then there are the paintings that are not so bad they need to disappear; they're the ones I need to recast in my mind as unfinished or with problems that may have solutions and work a little harder to bring them together.

The painting Column from July of 2008 has continued to bother me. It's been out and come back again. It was a difficult painting from the beginning; the deep chromatic red in the background seemed to overpower everything, the figure was stiff and her head not quite right, Milly got her tough cow-punching feet on it once, and neither I nor Chris could seem to get a good photo of it. The only thing I really liked was the, well, butt crack. But those hips seemed worth the trouble of another attempt at a better piece, and a canvas with paint on it moves along more quickly because I like the surface better.

Here's the re-do:

And the two together: