4:40 PM: today i did work on both tree 1 & tree 2. the latter may be resolved; we walked it over to the house & i'll know tomorrow. i've got to clean up & get going; so i'll write more later.
BELOW: here's what they look like at the end of my painting day:
4:06 PM: so i ended up putting together a proposal for an east coast gallery that interests me, but i did do a little more work on tree 1 instead of tree 2, as i had written earlier. as you can see in the comparative images below, i basically lightened the siena ground and painted out the brown underbrush in the lower quadrant. there's more to do, so i'll see tomorrow what happens. i may start tomorrow by going back into tree 2....
12:14 PM: i'm about to get a late start and continue tweaks to tree 2, which in this shot i am evaluating.
updates will be posted as they become available.
DETAIL: 10/29/17 plein air 1
9am: yesterday afternoon mikela and i went to the creek. she helped me carry my painting equipment to the spot i chose on the creek; about a 5 minute walk from the trailhead, and then left me to set up and paint while she took a walk. conditions were near perfect. clear, with that warm late afternoon light i love, no wind. as i set up my little collapsable table, i entered the magical zone where time & space disappear, everything but the light on the landscape and the sound of the rushing water fades into oblivion. about mid way into the experience, something came over me and i began making a sound. it emerged and there was nothing i could do about it. it was somewhere between a bird and a coyote.
2:28 PM: about to leave for the creek; here's a comparison of tree 2 yesterday & after todays tweaks (yesterday on left):
1:27 PM: in about an hour i'll go out to paint plein air gouaches at the creek. mikela will join me and walk up the trail. when i'm done i'll meet up with her. here i am preparing 3 new paper surfaces to use this afternoon, taping them to foam core in preparation for todays adventure.
on the upper right you can catch a glimpse of my 4 watch winder, which twirls them to the right, pauses for about 10 minutes, and then to the left, making it unnecessary for me to hand wind them, every morning.
i'll post pics of what i've painted later today. before leaving, i'd like to start making a few tweaks to tree 2, which i'll likely complete tomorrow morning.
today i began work on a newly stretched canvas: tree 2, 68x18" unlike tree 1, which is painted on a siena ground, tree 2 is being painted on a white ground. so it's much more stark as an image. the fire scars on the trunk are almost painful to look at, perhaps reminding us of human disfiguration. technically, as with all my work, the foremost quality is painterliness, a gestural, calligraphic approach that is very much who i am as a visual artist and as a human, and harkens back, i sometimes think, to past lives in ancient china, where my buddies and i made music, paintings, calligraphy and poems in the wildly beautiful mountains, while drinking the local wine. a lively but dangerous time it was, with the looming possibility of falling out of favor with the latest ruler and facing possibly dire consequences; banishment or worse.
BELOW: 4 stages of tree 2
noon: BELOW is a comparative view of tree 1 this morning & just now. the blue is lighter; the browns on the bottom are lighter & broken up by twigs, branches & grasses, and the tree itself has more dimensionality and coloristic variance. if i carry out my idea of a series of aspens, they will all be tall & narrow. i've always loved this shape.
11:04 AM: i'm about to make changes to the painting i began yesterday: tree 1. the blue is too strong, as are the browns at the bottom. more pics as available.
6:14 PM: as the clouds thicken and we await a few hours of snow, i'm looking at tree 1, which i brought over to the house for evaluation. the blue & brown need lightening, which i'll do tomorrow.
2 pm: this is one of those paintings you want to keep light, sketch-like, fresh. right now, she sings a beautiful melody, and maybe i need to stretch another canvas and start another one.
12 noon: this morning i began work on the 56x12" canvas i stretched yesterday. the image is drawn from a photo of an aspen tree i shot on one of our recent trail walks. more to come in the next few weeks. aspens are oft painted; i think my take will be unique in some ways. back to work now; more images as this painting evolves this afternoon.
7:09 PM: yesterday afternoon i went out to north crestone creek and made 2 new plein air paintings. it was an ideal afternoon and i found an ideal spot; one i've been to before. the light was spectacular, and the only interruption was a guy who brought his fly fishing gear and began casting only about 50 feet form where i was painting. i asked nicely if he would kindly find another spot, and he had no problem. i brought a few sips of a friend's wine and a few crackers with feta, which i had between paintings.
our actionlab360 meetings went far better than expected. once they ended and everyone left to return to boulder, i surfed the energy of the team & went straight out to the creek, where i made 3 new plein air gouaches at the unique campsite 8, where the creek backs up against a sheer stone cliff.
11:14 AM: i'll be on a break & won't be able to get back to painting until next monday.
in the mean time, i've been surveying recent work and, because i'm preparing a dossier for a friend who offered to show my work to several galleries, reviewing past work.
upper left: before leaving for europe, i lived on elizabeth st. in nyc, attended the school of visual arts and made paintings heavily influenced by the tail end of the abstract expressionist movement. here's a detail of one.
upper right: if i go back to 1978, paintings like this one appear, executed during my 15 years in greece.
lower left: when i returned to the states in 1979, i lived for a year in santa monica and spent time visiting with david hockney. when i house sat for him, i made this transitional painting of myself standing on his deck, in egg tempera on board.
lower right: the plein air paintings i've been making ever since we moved to crestone in the early '90's, seem to be bringing me full circle, back to where i started in nyc.
bottom: in my current late summer series, there is an integration of all the points along my path, with the common denominator being my love for the painterly
3:50 PM: today i put together a proposal for a friend who generously offered to show my work to several galleries. there are 7 categories thus far. BELOW are examples form each of those categories.
