FRIDAY

I finally got back to the studio today after a week working at home.  I have been focusing on two articles for The Palette Magazine.  One involved doing a painting as an exercise then writing about the process.  The other article is an artist profile.  The deadline looms...

But I needed a break from writing as I was feeling stale.  At the studio, also feeling a bit rusty by my absence here, I worked on three paintings just to get back in the flow.  

acrylic/paper
18 x 18

acrylic/paper
30 x 44

acrylic/canvas
82 x 82

All three are still in development.  It feels good to just be in the process.  Hope you had a creative day too.

CLEANING DAY

Yesterday, I delivered some paintings to a viewing for a possible acquisition.  It is reaffirming to have someone interested in my work. 

Afterwards I went to the studio to clean and organize for an upcoming studio visit next week.  My studio mate, Wendy Young, will be happy to see the new look.  And I will spend less time searching for tools and more time painting

PLAYING AT WORK

For this month my 2011 resolution is to play more with painting.  Note: my resolutions are only on a month basis.  I took some paintings I no longer liked and gessoed over them.  That was a very enjoyable task.  For this work I am inspired by a orange tank top and a photo of a street scene from my travels to Beijing a few years back.  My plan is to paint, experiment, paint, evaluate, paint and if needed gesso again over it all.  These are the first explorations on 12 x 12 and 14 x 18 canvases using acrylics.  The photo quality is poor as I am using my simple digital camera that can only record at a very low resolution and the available daylight/room light.  Seeing the work in a different format (no matter what the quality) also helps me to better evaluate the painting.

The other fun part  about this work is that I have been emailing the images to an artist friend in Maine and we been critiquing/discussing the work.  My friend has provided valuable input and the feeling of working in a vacumn disappears.  So far this has been an easy 2011 resolution to stick too.