passages

Some random moments from The Big Painting, passages seen up close.  Nearly all of these things will be covered up in more paint.  But then I’ll take close ups of those too …

It’s fun for me looking at the surface.  I hope it’s fun for the spectator too.  Many things are abstract seen up close.

There’s lots of color contrast in this painting, both in the painting as a whole and in the smaller sections.

The flowers will get more stuff done to them, but these flowers will probably never be anything other than painted flowers with details of paint but not details of botany.

I am contemplating a plate.  It may go at the bottom.  Not sure.  Right now it exists only as a broken arc.  Blue jay’s tail is visible on the left.

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the in-between-times project

I have this little 14 x 11 inch still life that I pulled out of the stack.  I’ve already altered it a little to conform to the new drawings that I’ve been making of the motif.  Like The Big Painting, I am painting this from drawings.  The objects are set up in a still life right here in the studio, but the light has been variable — plus I cannot commit to being in the studio at the right times since The Big Painting is the priority.

But it’s nice to have something else toward which I can turn my thoughts.  So here’s the side project.  Small, fun, no worries.

Here’s some of the studies so far — all the studies except one are made using Neopastels on various pastel papers:

This one needs some adjustment to the size of the compotier bowl, just visible, that hangs above the frog’s head.  Yes, again, frogs!

I love dealing with the edges around things and the spaces between things.  I like the “things that are not things” in a picture.

The above drawing proves that I can draw a motif that has no frog in it .   See, no frog.

This pastel above (traditional dry pastel) is from an earlier suite of drawings.  I found it among some dry pastels and was surprised to encounter my current subject.

And here’s yet another recent drawing that I started and haven’t as yet finished.  Then again, does it really need to be finished?  I mean, hey, the frog is there …

not obsessed, really

It’s not an obsession.  Really.  But I have needed more information for the famous froggie teapot and his side-kick the blue jay figurine so I was doing studies of these two — again — yesterday.  I made the little painting first  (10 x 8 inches) and later in the night I drew them in oil pastel.

I think I have what I need to work on the Big Painting now, but I won’t know for sure until I’ve started dealing with that element directly.  I’m painting the picture from the studies. All the creatures will have eyes in the Big Painting.  They don’t have eyes here because it’s too much trouble.  How’s that sound for a deeply artistic reason?

The oil pastel is 12 x 9 inches on tan colored Strathmore 500 series charcoal paper.