facets of evening

hello. i have been working on several new painting projects and attempting to become comfortable with figures as a natural part of the landscape. which, of course, they are. even in an impressionistic painting you need to get the "gist" of the figures "just so" or the whole thing is a waste of time. this piece is one of the ones that made the cut so far. there are others that are close - but they are still under evaluation by the committee. :)

under vines - i

i didn't like this much when i finished it a week or so ago. but looking at it again i notice that it has somewhat grown on me. it is stark. dry. hot. australian. it has a singing combo of violets and yellows. and i like the way the green hill supports that solitary tree against the sky.

this is not in my wet-in-wet style that i really like best. but. it has a nice naive quality.

between the lines - i and ii

this is an interesting one. i have wanted to do something along these lines for a while. a lass named nikki spannuth posted a black and white photo on facebook that made a perfect subject. i was most interested in the way the light draws the viewer and the subject toward the unknown of the distance. i am not entirely happy with this piece - but it is a good start. i find that it is harder to please myself these days. that means i am either become better or worse - or, perhaps, grumpy...

i was going for a "dog day" afternoon motif. the ones remembered. the unyielding light and the softening shadows. there is something remembered about this - something very 60's, dylanesque. perhaps overly romantic. it is perhaps too busy. the shadows not strident enough against the light in the foreground. maybe it should be starker and more simple. the light going into the distance is there - but the rest of the piecee fails to uphold that. that is what i do not like.

so, here is the second version. smaller. starker. more strident. simpler too. can be simplified further i think...

bush gloaming - i and ii

a new color experiment. interesting how it went in a totally different direction as i chose two or three pigments that were totally different to my winter ones...


i just need to work on the shapes a little. but it feels like somewhere i have been many times before... then. later that night. we went in a slightly different direction. not quite as intended. but close.

frost killing hour - xix - aftermath

the first wash of this piece was so lovely. soft. violets made from FUB and permanent rose. and, of course, water.
it was almost "achingly" sweet. Ian would have called it "sweet" perhaps in a perjorative way. however, he would not have said this in a negative way. he would have meant "it is too sweet for ME to paint. but it is OK for you"

i had to struggle to touch it again. i thought about balancing the sweetness with something harsh. burnt. post bushfire. that is part of where this has led. showwing that a bushfire scene when made very cold, looks even more stark and somber.

no provenance without metadata

ok. here goes. the last few months have been spent doing very cold work. watercolor is a very organic medium (despite being 100% inorganic!).

so the weather is warmer and i started to do "frost killing hour - xx" and ended up with "yields to spring - i"!!!

i know i am working "wide screen" alot. i know i am obsessed with either pure flat horizon or roads and rivers etc. but at the moment i am painting moods and not shapes. so. here is:

"yields to spring - i".

Add a caption

ok. here goes. the last few months have been spent doing very cold work. watercoilor is a very organic medium (despite being 100% inorganic!). so the weather is warmer and i started to do "frost killing hour - xx" and ended up with "yields to spring - i"!!! i know i am working "wide screen" alot. i know i am obsessed with either pure flat horizon or roads and rivers etc. but at the moment i am painting moods and not shapes. so. here is: "yields to spring - i".

frost killing hour - are we there yet???

no. we are not there yet. are we? no. i think not. i watched a youtube video done by Arnold (Lowrey) last week. he makes a wonderful job of it. and he "pushed" the series "frost killing hour" in a different direction. normally, i would not show the "meta workings" of a painting - but this time i am. what the heck, eh? the really disastrous attempts and the sketches are kept hidden. but the pieces that i sign and annotate on the back (title, date and notes) i am numbering and publishing here in the blog. that is what a blog is for isn't it? so arnold was doing cool stuff with reflections, snow, water, castles and razor blades. and that lead me here:
this is "frost killing hour - xv". we will get to "xiv" later. i wanted no life at all in this. no evidence of life. the rocks in the foreground worried me - but they do repeat the cold of the sky. arnold had mentioned that a patch of "manganese" blue in the sky and a touch of warmth in the subjects was important. i also used "burnt umber" which is something arnold uses and i have avoided like the plague - forever. when mixed with colors it does wonders for cold winter skies. so i will keep using it.

i will post several other pieces in this series that i have done this weekend - during this week. i am not really happy with any of them. but i am happy enough with aspects of each of them.

:)

-- joel.