2020 creek oil 7 at 3:30pm
3:36PM: a few lightening scrapes before leaving fo the house. the white color of the canvas is a bit off because i was forced to photograph it in artificial light.
2020 creek oil 7 at 2:15 pm
2:37 PM: i’ve stopped working,as it has become much too dark with the approaching storm. precipitation should start momentarily as rain, turning to snow as the temperature rapidly drops. currently it’s 53°F, dropping about 3° an hour, predicted to reach a record 23°F late tonight into tomorrow morning. so i haven’t done too much more to 2020 creek oil 7, other than the darker indigo blue you see on the mid-right.we’ll see if it’s light enough to paint tomorrow. as most of you know, i prefer the natural light coming from my large north facing studio windows.
by the way, this particular canvas is the artfix extra fine portrait linen, which has virtually no tooth and perfect absorbency. so putting brush to canvas is really magical and very much determines the direction a painting takes. i’ve never painted on a surface quite like it. only the french could have produced it. it’s really designed to be used on smaller surfaces like this.
1:09 PM: about an hour ago, i started work on 2020 creek oil 7. before squeezing my colors onto the palette, i thumbed through one of my matisse books. i was struck by a painting i knew. but it was as if i was seeing it for the first time: violinist at the window, painted 102 years ago in 1918. what struck me this time was his certainty in the way he divdes up the surface, his limited palette, the way he painted the violinists head, as an empty white oval and his limited palette.
BELOW left: 2020 creek oil 7 and on the right, violinist at the window, by matisse
12:06 PM: srtaing in a few hours, we’re expectring sn unusually early snowstorm, with record breaking, for this date low temperatures of about 20-24° tonight through tomorrow night. 8-10” of snow are predicted for crestone/baca.
so, before meditating & getting to work, i made a quick run into town to get a few essentials: eggs for tonights omlettes, soy milk for our coffee and ice cream, for pure pleasure!
11/17/19 trail walk 1
DETAIL of the 11/17/19 trail walk 1 photo
i just printed out a new creek image from one of our trail walks about 10 months ago, and may start work on one of the 16x20” canvases i stretched yesterday. notice that there are no logs or branches? i wanted pure rocks and water for this one. the rich oranges excite me, as do the blick-ish dots on the rock on the lower left.
i will, as usual, post the progress of this new 2020 creek oil 7 as it progresses.