celebration 19 20x38” following the white-overs i did just now
12:30 PM: i don’t have much time in the studio today because of a dental appointment, so i whited over some of the passages that i deemed unecessary and we’ll see in the morning if and what else i might do.
celebration 19 as she looked at the end of my painting day today
3PM: i made some further modifications to celebration 19, and here’s how she looks at the end of my painting day.
celebration 19 20x38” following this mornings modifications to the bird
12:23 PM: well, i thought celebration 19 was complete, but that bird on it’s side was bugging both of us, so i painted a different one over it.
4:03 PM: after stretching a new canvas using my just delivered portrait linen & the 36x32” stretcher bars i had ordered last week, i got back into celebration 19. as i was flipping through some older works on paper, i came across these two untitled pieces, which now have the titles: papua and starflower. i made a few modifications to papua, which is why it’s dated 2012/2024.
starflower, 30x11 1/4” 2020
papua , 8x6” 2012/2024
3:32 PM: today i took celebration 19 further, and applied 2 pieces of paper with calligraphic brush markings.
earlier this morning, i discovered an abandoned collaged canvas. it had some interesting elements, which caught my eye. so i cut off the best portion, which now sits in a little frame beneath one of my small closets used for storing sketchbooks.
collaging celebration 19
celebration 19 as she looked at the end of my painting day today
approaching storm, 18x44.5cm. oil & collage on linen
2:52 PM: i started a new painting today, on a canvas i had already stretched a few weeks back, which is 38x20”. it loosely follows the composition of the one i just completed: celebration XVIII., but there’s different bird, which for the moment is the only thing to which i’ve applied oil color, and o fcourse the dimensions are different. let’s see where she takes me tomorrow.
celebration 19 38x20” oil on linen, as she looked just now
celebration XVIII 28x18 1/2” oil on linen at the end of my painting day today
2:49 PM: i continued work, albeit gingerly, on celebration XVIII today and, other than a few tweaks i’ll make tomorrow, it’s resolved. i wanted there to be a lot of white space and at the same time to be a composition with grace and elegance. i purposely left the two figures as just drawings; the tennis player and the guy holding a document he’s reading. the tennis player’s magenta shadow is there, and plays off the violets and blues in the bird’s feathers. tomorrow i’ll extend the brown tree trunk the rest of the way up to that red line, which is where the cnavas will be folded over & attached to the stretcher bars. same with the light blue curved line on the bottom, which needs to go another inch down.
celebration XVIII 28x18 1/2” at the end of my painting day today
3:53 PM: today i started work on the third of 3 28x18 1/2” linen canvases. i have a good feeling about this one. let’s see what tomorrow brings!
3:51 PM: this afternoon i went back into celebration XVII, which had an appealing simplicity yesterday but wasn’t really me. i worked into it, scrubbed it out, scraped over it and continued like this till 15 minutes ago, when i was just to exhausted to continue.
so here’s how i left her. there’s a nude on the left and a mother in a bathing suit seated on a patterned fabric with her baby on the right.
celebration XVII as she looked at the end of my painting day today
3:06 PM: i made significant modifications to celebration XVI, which i started yesterday, and started celebration XVII. they are both on the 28x18 1/2” pieces of remaining portrait linen, which i’m using while awaiting delivery of the new roll, probably wednesday-thursday.
celebration VXI as she looked moments ago, following extensive modifications to yesterdays version
celebration XVI, 28x18 1/2” as it looked at the end of my painting day today
4:20 PM: i have three canvases left from my roll of portrait linen, each 28x18 1/2 “ i started work on the first canvas today, which is titled celebration XVI.
