Fallbrook Spring

Not knowing?   Many artists discuss the importance of knowing what you want your painting to look like before you start painting it.  Do the value sketch and stick to it.  Other artists say they have no idea how the painting will look when they're done.  They just get started and see what happens.  About planning paintings, Richard Diebenkorn is quoted as saying  "If I already knew how the painting was going to look, I wouldn't bother to paint it."  Some would just prefer the excitement of finding the painting as they go along.  Some have no choice in the matter. Like me!  I start out with an idea, but as I go along I get other ideas and pretty soon...well, something else emerges.  It's a constant state of discovery!  So I embrace the suspense of the process.  Let the magic creep in.

This is another in my Fallbrook series.  I've used a cooler palette to evoke the freshness of spring. 

Fallbrook, Spring is 6x6" acrylic media and collage on panel.

Across the Meadow - Aqua Mist

Deja Vu All Over Again!  A further effort in my series, Across the Meadow.  A continued study of texture and simplicity of composition.  

P.S. Today is Patriot's Day in Boston!  Longfellow echoes in my ear: "Listen my children and you shall hear/of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere..."

Across the Meadow-Aqua Mist is 8x8", acrylic media and collage on panel.

Forest Garden

"Go often to the house of thy friend.  Weeds choke the unused path."  I rediscovered this wisdom from Ralph Waldo Emerson upon returning from vacation.  (I golfed and did not paint one stroke. )  You know where this story is going.  Upon re-entering the studio, it was just as if I had never painted before!    Ah, well.  Time to hack away some weeds, as we do in the garden, to find our friend.  

Forest Garden is 6x6" acrylic media and collage on panel.

Fallbrook Summer

 If not you, who?   Do you have those days when it's so hard to walk away from Life and get into the studio? The demands are urgent!  The tasks are important!  Yes, they are.  But.  At the same time, I think you have to remind yourself that when you paint, you create something - where nothing existed before.  You're making something out of the ether.  And if you don't do it, who will?   And if not now, when?  The family is never fed, the house is never clean.  You feed them, they're hungry again.  So forget it.  Go create something which will at least outlive the car repairs.

Fallbrook Summer is 6x6" acrylic media and collage on panel.