canvas 17 in my polyptych suite of paintings
4:16 PM: I started canvas 17 this afternoon feeling continued inspiration form the visual of the 2020 tokyo olympics final celebration. we didn’t attend the event, but what I saw on tv was so over the top beautiful, I became kind of obsessed with it. I major element in that excitement was the work of the designers who created the costumes, the back drop and all the elements that played a role. the whole thing had a painterly flair
12:42 PM: still windy & very cold, but the skies are clearing & the natural painting light is good. thank god for my big north windows!
I started work on canvas 17 of my polyptych suite, but realized as I was starting to work on the new one that canvas 16 needed more. I think what I did is a vast improvement and says a lot about persisting with something you’re working on till it signals you “i’m complete.” throughout the history of art, that moment has been a fugitive and highly treasured one. how did van gogh know, or matisse, or diebenkorn when a painting or drawing was complete? even the great masters sometimes got it wrong. if you visit the van gogh museum in Amsterdam, you’ll find an entire floor devoted to less successful or outright unsuccessful paintings he made over the course of his career, many of which are either under or over-worked.
BELOW: yesterdays version on the left, and how the painting looked moments ago, on the right.
notice: the chest and head of the basketball player in the center have been filled in, clearing up the confusion the viewer may have had about that figure in yesterdays version. likewise with the basketball player in the center. the jacket of guy on the left holding the jump rope now has a blue-green color, which is nicely set off by his red shorts. and I think, despite all the previously while spaces that have been filled in, there are still enough to allow this painting to breathe.
so i’m going to leave it for now & go back to the new CANVAS 17.
more later….
