Plugging Away

When inspiration doesn't carry me forward, I rely on just plain old hard work.

Today at the studio I took aim at the Outer Banks. In March I will need to take new paintings to both of my galleries on the OBX, and I only have five or six ready to go. So, beaches and oceans and soundsides and sailboats at anchor. Dunes and tall skinny pines and long roads, bordered on one side by dunes and on the other by telephone poles and the salt flats of Pea Island Wildlife Refuge.

Sometimes, too, there is Ocracoke, with its wild ponies and long, uninhabited beaches. The small village at the southern tip of the island is another source of material for paintings.

Today:

The Few, the Precious

and on paper:

No Fair!

Why can't inspiration last?

Just when I get to thinking that I know what I want and how to get it, poof! It's gone!

That field with trees and sky is getting hard to paint now, and I thought I had a subject that would last for a lifetime. But no. Now the fields are getting boring, too picky, too fussy, and the tree line is not interesting enough - the trees have become too solid and discrete - no fun edges and overlapping colors. The sky - almost always light if not white in color. Originally, I'd thought I could vary the colors wildly. Make the sky purple and the trees yellow and the field red and green or red or green. But most of that didn't work. I got perhaps five paintings - maybe six - out of the field, and now I'm right back where I was, sorting through old photos trying to get inspiration, sigh.

Anyway, I suppose it's somewhat like the change of seasons. If all you had was paradise for weather, you'd get bored and wouldn't appreciate it after a while (at least I will keep telling myself that as I struggle back to the studio tomorrow).

Wish you were here...

Nectar of the Gods

Margaret

Cold outside, warm inside.

The boiler is working well, the studio is warm. Let the wind howl outside (and it does!) and the windows rattle, inside the paint is flowing and the paintings are being painted.

New artists in the building today. Old friends back from the holidays. Feels like a good season for some hard work.

Conversation between the Earth and the Sky

Rapahannock Falls

Surviving the Holidays

These are times full with family and friends, and getting in to work becomes harder. Since the middle of December, I have been in only half as often as usual, producing less as well.

However inspired I am, I must also be in the mood to paint - or maybe they are the same thing (?). Hmmm. I think this is a bit of a mystery. Lately I have been inspired by the concept of having the 'quality of the act of painting' be the determining factor in a good painting. Wow that's cumbersome. Okay. Reworking: Lately my inspiration has been found in the way I paint, not so much in what I am painting. But by itself, that's not been enough to sustain my work over these days of holiday obligations. I'll go in, set up, pull out photos and canvases, putter around, waste paint, then close up shop and head out with nothing good to show. Day after day. Now and then, I am able to concentrate enough to finish something I like. When I can't, I spread the unused paint on a blank canvas and leave, to try again the next day.

Anyway, Christmas gift "Naomi and Clifford":

Cannot take credit for the composition. Naomi's Mom gets that.

Also:

You go, Green Hill!

An unexpected trip to North Carolina coming up. I have to replace the three paintings I had left there as they have all been sold! I have wanted, all my professional artist life, to hear those words: "we've sold out" and now I have. In addition, those three paintings are representative of my new style, which is great validation of the direction my painting is taking lately.

And, they have posed a question that I am having fun asking myself:
Am I an abstract painter?

I have never considered myself to be an abstract painter, although others, looking at my work, have deemed it to be abstract. In fact, what I think about my work is that I paint mostly scenery in an abstract style.

There's always some "there there" (paraphrasing Gertrude Stein) in my paintings, and I still want to maintain that property. But I don't want to give it all away to the viewer. I want the person looking at my work to see more than I've put there, I want to draw them in with their own vision.

Anyway, validation and incentive both. Thanks Green Hill Center for NC Art.

The Three Sisters

Ahhh, back to work...

Open Studios is over. Next one will be in May of 2013.

I spent all day Monday putting the studio back into working order (storing older paintings in the loft and bringing down my canvases and works in progress so that I could get back to work.

Tuesday spent taking works to The Art League at The Torpedo Factory for jurying and then a couple of hours at work in the studio continuing the process of getting ready for work. Later, picked up paintings (Argh where to put them?) from The Frame Factory in Alexandria and then, the remainder of the day and into the evening helping to hang the show at The Torpedo Factory.

Wednesday - finally - got a good parking spot and was able to spend some time painting. Yay!

Holidays and Open Studios...

This time of year requires so much effort that keeping up this blog is falling by the wayside (a bit).

I haven't even been able to get any painting done for the past week, other than the edges of finished work, putting on the wires and backing boards. It's always such a relief when the event is over.

That is not to say that I don't enjoy it. I do. It's such fun to talk to people and see the young kids coming through. I like to think that being exposed to working artists in this setting will open their eyes to possibilities that might not have seemed available without this exposure.

Anyway - the studio is as tidied up as it ever gets. On Monday, I'll take it all back apart and get to work.