#8 - Nocturne at Dawn

#8 - Nocturne at Dawn, 6x6", MDF Gesso Board

This is an experiment in working with contrasts between sky and trees.   It's a challenge not to get cliched about this, so I concentrated on awareness of surface, brushstrokes and pattern.  The lace formed by the trees and sky holes is an interesting subject.   My jumping off point was a photograph of a sky in these general colors.  I made the rest up, looking for excuses to use high contrasts and broken detail.

This is another in what may eventually turn out to be a series of nocturnes. 

But for now, I'm going to work next on some faces, exploring color and emotion.   I'm still jumping around a lot, trying to find my pace with these works!

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#6 - Icy Nocturne - A Study in Intensities

#6- Icy Nocturne, 8x8", Oil on Stretched Canvas

With this, my sixth small painting, I decided going in that this would not take me all afternoon.  I made a deal with myself that no matter what, I would make choices and live with them.  This didn't come as an easy bargain, let me tell you.  I like to pick, polish, and fret over things.  And it is really a new thing for me not to need several sessions with a piece before I'm happy.  Sometimes, it's many sessions, particularly with portraits, which have taught me humility, if nothing else.

So, here was this reference and it was kind of begging for some interest, so I decided to pop up the color and see where that took me, no matter what.

The reference was taken a while back after a freezing rain storm.  It's actually looking down the alleyway next to our house.  Everything was a glare of ice that night with surreal colors reflecting of iced surfaces.

I don't know if I caught it, exactly, but this was a hoot to do.  The freedom of not fretting too much about it made me feel a bit more courage, and I pretty much laid on the color and left it.   I even told myself I didn't need to share it.  No one would ever know.  It would be my little secret.  Ha!

It's not my usual style, but I'm not used to painting being like this, so this was great to do.  Looking at it now, I'm thinking it's maybe a little over the top, but I'm leaving it as it is.  What might make your eyes cross in a larger size is less garish in this smaller one.   Maybe.

I wonder, do a lot of people find making paintings relaxing and fun most of the time?  I really can't say that I do.  It's intense, interesting, nerve wracking, and it wears me out.  I still love the challenge, but I never understood the concept of it being simple fun.  Moments can be exciting, like when there is a passage that really works, but fun?  Nope.

Well, today, it was fun.  Two hours of it!  Maybe this is something this daily painting practice might give me.  Courage?


 (It's taken me a few days to put this up since the paint is pretty heavy impasto, and I like to scan these little ones in rather than photograph them.   I needed to wait for it to partially dry.)

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#4 -Soft Light and Fog, a Study in Whispers

#4- Fog Whispers, 6x6", Oil on MDF Board

For this, my fourth small painting, I was working in generalities, trying to explore the warmth of the sky light against the contrast of the darker, cooler water and land mass.  The low light was tricky because colors die in it, and catching the right values and intensities was my challenge.

Richard Schmid, the accomplished American painter and teacher once said that blending is like mumbling.  I have always kept that in mind since I read it in one of his books.  He is right.  There is danger in blending away all the energy in a piece when you obscure the immediacy of the brush marks as they are placed.  But fog is soft, and maybe more about muffled quiet than a mumble.

I chose to soften the whole piece after I laid it in.  Then, I came back with my brush, allowing the freshness of unaltered strokes.   I'm not sure if the result is exactly what I wanted, but once again, this was a valuable learning experience. 

I hope it is more like a whisper than a mumble.

_____

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