Tag: goals and plans

  • Playa: September 19 & 20, 2013

    Thursday Sept 19 As I walked back from the Commons last night, I saw the moon rising in the east over the playa. It was not a huge moon like one sometimes sees but it illuminated the entire lake bed. More stunningly, it was golden, so bright that I didn’t need a flashlight. I was…

  • The Figure in the Landscape: Summer 2012

    I just completed a 2-week, six-day workshop on the figure in landscape. I have decided that this year I will concentrate on painting figures and faces, so in June, I reviewed portraiture with Jeff Burke at Hipbone studio (see the previous post). And in July,  I took this workshop. Our schedule was fairly routine: We…

  • Dateline: Mitchell, Oregon, Day 5, Sept 10, 2011

    We zoomed out to Picture Gorge extra early today, hoping to catch the shadows and avoid the heat. We were carrying the large canvases in the carrier Neighbor Jim made for me; the carrier protects the car from oil paint, and me from sorrowful looks by Jer, who loves his 1994 Honda and can’t bear…

  • Dateline: Mitchell, Oregon. Canoodling Conundrums on Day 3, Sept 8

    It was cloudy at 8 AM when we started off to the Painted Hills, an earlier day than yesterday. I was ready to finish off an already composed painting. The early start and muted sun turned out to be advantageous for capturing the color of the Hills. And the skies, full of clouds and Moran-like…

  • Benton, Pollock, and, um, Underwood

    As I explored in previous posts (here, here, and here), I’m continuing my quest for compositional methods and ways of seeing that can give me a framework for my mostly intuitive working. Thomas Hart Benton and scholars discussing his work have dissected his use of vertical spirals, collage-like murals, and falling-into-your-lap figuration. Thomas Hart Benton,…

  • Thomas Hart Benton: Vertical Composition, Energy Fields, and Space through Size

    Thomas Hart Benton  seems to hold one or more of the keys to my attempts to consciously understand my own painting processes. Thomas Hart Benton, Boomtown, 1927 –1928* As I noted here and here, I am concerned to find that sweet spot, the riparian zone of visual art, where space becomes place, but is not…

  • Space and Place, the Tangle and the Wonkiness

    To continue my thoughts on space and place: I have been working on textiles, which means 10% design and 90% execution. Execution always gives me lots of time to think. So I am pondering, still, on my own art making — what I make, and why it’s not necessarily what I generally like in art.…

  • “Finished” Done, Complete, Replete, the End: Nov 30, 2009

    I have declared the big linen panorama “finished.” Note the quotes. I almost never finish a work until it has sat and thought for a while. And until I have sat and looked for a while. However, we will hold an Open Studio next Saturday, pack up the Studio Sunday, pack up the house after…

  • Unoriented: Day 29, Nov. 29, 2009

    I told Jer this morning that I should be able to “finish” these canvases in another two days. Tonight I’m not so sure. But I’m not going to show any more photos of them until I’m fairly confident that I’ve done as much as I can see to do. The panorama set does have a…

  • No Desert: Day 25, Nov 25, 2009

    No desert painting today. I stayed in Beatty, fooled around  at the House this morning, and painted in town this afternoon. I haven’t any photos of the paintings, but I must report that it was something like 70 degrees and (what else) sunny, today. Even the wind cooperated (which means the sun and wind allowed…