2:36 PM: woman in landscape was the first in the 2017 landscapes series, painted on december 2, 2107. it hung in our living room for a period of time, but never grew on either of us. finally today, after returning from our 2 week trip to nyc & dc, i decided it should be radically revised.
8/10/11 plein air 16x16"
as i sometimes do when i'm re-working an older image, i turned it upside down on my work table. i scraped, rubbed and then went over a good part of the canvas with a warm white. i was referring to a 16x16" plein air oil painted at the creek on august 10, 2011, which you see on the RIGHT.
traces of the underlying painting peek through in the current phase, creating a play of lines and colors hinting at the vibrance and aliveness of the creek. as i rubbed over the original woman in landscape, areas that had been drawn in colored pencil, crayon and oil pastel smeared into the white pigment, resulting in a warm glow suffusing the entire image. early philip guston comes to mind, as do certain twombly images. lets see where it wants to go tomorrow. thus far, a constant in this series seems to be a painterly, layered picture plane, conjuring the sensual, roiling vivaciousness of the creek.
BELOW: on the LEFT: woman in landscape as it looked before todays intervention. RIGHT: the painting at 3 pm.
9:38 AM: got a great nights sleep & am ready for a productive day in the studio. here is one of the matisse paintings we saw in the permanent collection of the national gallery, washington, d.c.
this painting represents a lifetime of drawing & painting distilled down to the simplest, most elegant combination of forms in space, color and beautiful marks.
