In My Minimalist Tradition

"Floating Ovoids with White Vessel"

30 x 40

  

A recently completed painting -- minimalist for sure, with its orange on orange ovoids and rectangles.  Today,  I began two smaller paintings and continued to take small steps toward completing "Twisted Strands".  Working on more than one painting concurrently is something new for me.  Not sure why it's taken me so long to adopt this approach, as it makes so much sense: Stuck on one?  Move to another.  Waiting for paint to dry?  Work on another.  And so it goes. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Twisted Strands . . .Still In Progress

A rather dark, soft-focus view of Twisted Strands (24 x 30 --in progress)

  Soft-focus view out our front door. A foggy Portland morning illuminated by the rising sun.

Funny how a painting develops.  Or should I say, "Funny how my paintings develop."   Twisted Strands began as a colored pencil thumbnail sketch of the very simple composition depicted above, sans the succession of rectangles on the top.  The sketch was done in a saturated color palette of orange, cerise, teal and yellow, ala the Chinese export bowls that I love; and my first session on the painting took it in that direction. But as the days passed, I gradually lightened the painting up, save for the large rectangles on the bottom that remained in saturated hues of orange.  

Meanwhile, I alternately hung the painting in portrait and landscape views, struggling with the composition as I continued to struggle with the palette.  (If you missed it, you can see an earlier state of the painting here.) Late the other night, I decided the orange rectangles had to go, and the strands, which had recently gone very dark, needed to be lightened up.  So, here we are.  And today, I am contemplating how I will wrap this painting up, and whether I'm brave enough to "pierce" one or both of the large, now white rectangles. And therein lies the intrigue and joy of painting!   

Oh, and the lovely bowls with the Oriental feel?  Well, you can read about them here. When the painting's palette shifted, the bowls immediately came out of the cupboard. :)

Happy weekend everyone!!