12:20 pm early state of best left unsaid 7
it's a rainy, dark day here in the baca grande, but i have enough light coming from my 3 4x8 ft. north windows here in the studio to begin working on this latest 16x16" canvas in the series. i'll post pics of the new painting a bit later in the day.
12:20pm: on the right is the current early state of the painting. which area will be painted in, which left as empty, pregnant space?
1:36pm: this is always a challenging moment. the temptation is great to leave it as is. it has enough information and just enough suggestive, unfilled space to make it satisfying as a painting and provocative as a frozen moment in time, as are all moments, except this one has been created with brush and paint.
3:53pm: i'll never really know if it would have been best to stop with the version below left, or whether the version below right is "better." there's really no answer. one of these days, i'm going to do 3 or 4 versions of the same painting in various states. if i were a collector, i'd love to have a suite like that. so that's it for today. it helped a lot that i got a good nights sleep last night, so my energy was pretty even all day. as i type this and glance down at the 2 images below, i'm glad i took it further. it's still a great example of the "unfinished" aesthetic. if you have time, scroll down, then hit "older" until you get to my posts of 9/22, 9/16 and 9/7, where i address the "finished" vs "unfinished" issue, and give some examples of 19thc. plein air paintings. that's what this series is all about. when i have time (ha-ha,) i'll create a page dealing uniquely with this topic, which will include everything i've thought & written about it thus far.
i'd also like to create a page titled "painterly," where i discuss and give examples of what that expression means throughout the history of art.
earlier this morning i had a phone call with my old friend angelos delivorrias, curator of the benaki museum in athens. i brought him up to date on the progress of our talks with the director of the hellenic museum in melbourne, and our plans for a major museum show including myself and the three greek artists who were also a part of the athens school group of painters in the '60's-'70's. he is very excited by the project and waiting to hear when we schedule our trip to athens for the selection of works, interviews, etc. visit my media page to read the article in a melbourne newspaper that got the ball rolling.
my studio, with the new canvas resting on my drafting table, where i'm about to begin work