New work unfolds in December 2017

As some of you know, I recently moved out of the larger unheated barn studio that I has been using over the summer to early fall months and moved back into my home studio, which is about a 14x15’ foot space crammed with everything under the sun related to my art and art business. Needless to say, I’m feeling a bit cramped, which has also been a confirmation for me of how beneficial having a larger studio is to my painting practice.

Between September and November alone, I delivered and shipped over 50 paintings for exhibitions, and of those 50 paintings, 40 of them were entirely new or recently revised and repainted between mid July and the end of October. That’s three months! Now I know what a bigger studio can do for me! I’ve never painted that many paintings in that short of a time period in my life… ever! Even BEFORE having kids!

But as life goes, everything is cyclical. Seasons change and we must adapt and adjust. When the temperatures started dropping more drastically, it meant it was time for me to move back into my home studio. Although on the outset, this felt like a little bit of a bummer, for I was really reaping the benefits of momentum while painting in a larger studio, I was also aware that by switching gears from a large studio to a smaller one, also came with it opportunities to rethink some things, do something new, and perhaps change it up a bit.

So, I prepared about 24 small panels to paint on between the sizes of 6x6 and 16x20 and the night after Thanksgiving I worked late in my studio. What has been born has been a totally new series of small paintings in which I thinking more about drawing, working with a slightly “grittier” color palette and playing with nuance a little bit more in terms of the gray tonalities- and I’m having so much fun! I am feeling extremely engaged in these new little works, a little scared, and I find myself sneaking into my studio from time to time, when the kids have lost track of me for 30 seconds, just to quickly get a glace at my paintings in progress and try to figure out what they might need.

Yes, since painting at home again, I have already suffered the stress of having my twin boys break into my studio that was left unlocked and gleefully trample over 3 recently finished, wet paintings on paper, leaving their little shoe prints all over my paintings as a reminder that no painting is ever completely safe in my house! BUT, despite the threat of these random occurrences painting at home again also has it’s perks…. like going back into my studio to work late at night after my kids are all asleep, armed with a glass of wine an simply allowing myself to experiment, explore, take risks and paint when I’m feeling the desire...even if it's at 10:00 o'clock at night.

In these paintings I am working with a combination of materials and tools that incorporate the bristle brushes, oil sticks, the palette knife, rags, sometimes a razor when seeking to edit out paint or return back to a thinner, transparent surface and then a relatively limited color palette.

Within each work, I am allowing myself to draw through the forms, building up a surface, and incorporating both hard and soft edges to help create an illusion of space and form.

There is no denying it the landscape has often been presenting itself in these works. I'm finding myself journeying into a soft, snow path of winter.

I am enjoying the painterly qualities that present themselves much more obviously on a smoother surface like, wood panel surface compared to canvas. Because wood panel is a smoother surface, we can see details much more vividly.

What I enjoy about working on multiple paintings simultaneously is that it allows me to make work out problems much faster. In a way, by working on multiples, I can delve much deeper into the work.

This one is way in progress and is about to be changed.

"Warm Light", oil on panel, 8x8

This one has been spoken for- but the new owner has agreed to let me make a couple more finishing brush strokes, per my request :)

More visible in this last one, you may also be able to notice that I'm incorporating metallics into these- but often those metallics are subtle and can only be seen with the human eye.

I would love to hear your feedback and comments! What do YOU think?