5/9/2021 creek oil at 3:30 pm today
3:18 PM: de-phallic-ing: mikela walked over from the house & liked the new version of 5/9/2021 creek oil a lot. but, she said, the ink drawing on the lower portion kept drawing her eye to the detriment of the entire composition. actually, i agreed. i don’t care if it’s phallic, but it does concern me when any one element in a painting dominates.
so i simply collaged over it, and i do think the painting has improved because of it.
now that it’s become a vertical, i think 5/9/21 creek oil has found her voice, and begun to sing.
i especially love that new turquoise blue next to the cadmium yellow up on top.
and my discovery: making pen and ink drawings before starting to paint, cutting them up & introducing them into the composition, has evolved since i made it last month. it’s become an integral part of my language in making these larger creek oils. i say larger because it all started with small, 10x15” works on paper.
BELOW: are a few other details
1:51 PM: i collaged some of the pieces of the cut up drawing i made this morning on to the painting surface. then i had the urge to turn it into a vertical, and worked into it with a few of the new oil colors that i ordered, which were delivered a few weeks ago. one, a turquoise blue, really made a difference and livened up the composition , taking it from a 6 to a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10.
BELOW: on the left you see the painting following todays work. and on the right, how it looked as a horizontal before starting work this morning.
DETAIL of 5/9/21 creek oil at 1:45pm
12:52 PM: i’m finally back in my studio with no likely interruptions today. after having 5/9/21 creek oil on my easel for weeks and not including it in the 26x78” creek oil paintings i dropped off at space gallery this past week, i’m feeling ready to return to the spare painting, which definitely needs something more.
so i started by making some ink drawings of whatever was in front of me. as you can see, i placed the white paper i’m drawing on atop the painting, which is a solid surface due to the masonite beneath the canvas. in case you forgot, i use that as a way to be able to collage onto the canvas without it giving way.
once i move on to the next stage of work on this painting, i’ll post.