vacationland

vacationland
Vacationland (detail)

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Framing the Snow Angel



Here are a few recent photos from my studio. Gilding the frame for "Snow Angel" took quite a bit of work--none of it too difficult, but due to the scale, it just took a long time. In the end, I'm very pleased with how this looks. The last stages of a painting are always a challenge for me. Staying focused in order to finish loose ends can really seem tedious. I was encouraged to read about Lucien Freud's feelings on this subject in Martin Gayford's "Man with a Blue Scarf: On sitting for a Portrait by Lucien Freud". Fortunately there's the reward of placing the painting in a finished frame and seeing it freshly again. After all the hours of thinking about an image and then the subsequent realizing of the painting, this is a sweet moment that I cherish. 
The painting is off to Dowling Walsh Gallery on Friday, so today I will turn my attention back to a couple of nearly completed portraits while the snow angel serenely watches over me. 



Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Layover



Last week was an unusual one creatively speaking. It's always hard to sustain a creative thread while away from the studio; when I found myself stuck for over an hour in an airplane on the tarmac in Charlotte, NC I was not pleased.  Having listened to the audiobook of Joshua Foer's "Moonwalking with Einstein" for a while, I needed a break, so I pulled out my sketchbook and drew out a few ideas that I'd been thinking about recently.

Upon my return to Maine I was greeted (fortuitously from a snowman point of view--though not from a human driving point of view) with a heavy dose of new fallen snow. With schools cancelled, I knew that one of my favorite models might have some time to spare, so I called her and arranged for a session. This last image in this group is the result of working with her. One can see the roughness of the first sketched idea take a more naturalistic turn.

So, bear with me, you may well see the evolution of a painting in real time. 

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