It’s that time of the year when there are no art to-do’s or immediate commitments, which means completely free studio time! Time to reorganize and and refamiliarize myself with my vast collection of materials. Time to play! First step: bring out the crayons!
Neocolor 1 crayon on navy blue textured cover stock
The most enjoyable way to spend time in the studio on a cold, wintery day……..starting new paintings. Here are 6 details from different starts, on a variety of canvas sizes…..12×12 to 30×40. Many happy painting hours coming up!
Six Starts.1
Progress report, photographed after 1 week’s time, 2-3 passes on each canvas.
Many more composition/shape/color changes and layers to come. Is this fun or what?
A very exciting and productive week-end…..I now have 6 new starts. Each one 20″X30″. Let the painting begin!!!
34 Starts
This past week-end I taught a 2-day workshop about my process of making (building) acrylic/collage paintings. As my process is to work layer upon layer, which, of course requires drying (and thinking) time, it doesn’t work to demonstrate making a painting straight through, start to finish. It was necessary to both bring a variety of starts and demonstrate starts, second steps, third steps, etc. etc.
So now I have 34 new small (12″X12″ and 11″X14″) paintings going, all in various stages of completion. I could hardly wait to get my workshop tubs unloaded so I could start painting.
Another largish (36″X36″) painting begun. The earlier Evolution of a Painting sequence was my first time to do that type of set-by-step documentation of a piece, and I found it to be fun and quite helpful, so here begins another. What seems to be happening here is one of those “finding order” processes. The first step was to create a basically chaotic surface on which to work, find or create some images, then find or create some order within that chaos. It is still early in the process, so I haven’t settled on anything as yet, just enjoying the excitement of the exploration.
Yesterday was a day of uninterrupted studio time, and I was able to work on this piece…..a 30″X40″ acrylic/colored pencil painting. I have been documenting (loosely) the evolution of this piece on one of my “PAINTINGS” pages. This is a “follow the painting” painting. I begin with a general idea, and then keep adding, subtracting, adjusting. My initial idea is now only a memory, as the painting has led me in a different direction. This is the exciting part of the process…..I really don’t know what the final result will be, or when it will be completed. (Hopefully before the show I am preparing it for, which is in November)
This is where I stopped yesterday (it was time to relax by the river and enjoy a glass of wine.)
Yesterday was one of those particularly exhilarating days in the studio……a day to begin new paintings. I always work on more than one piece at a time (to allow for drying times, thinking time, using up left-over cups of paint, to be able to try out an inspiration that comes to me while working on one painting to another piece), and I am ready to add to the MINDSCAPE series and begin a new series of small river-related canvasses, title to be determined. 16 new beginnings, no rules (except for the size constraints), no specific plans other that to experiment and play with the textures and the colors. I crank up the music and do my best to keep my mind open to what is happening on the canvasses, confident that I will be able to move forward to a successful conclusion with each piece. I already know, based on past experience, that some will coalesce fairly quickly, and some will develop in a somewhat orderly manner, step by step, and that some will be real, frustrating struggles. Yes, I am interested in the destination, but to me the real joy is in the journey.
“You should have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague one. If you know exactly what you are going to do, what’s the good of doing it? Since you know, the exercise is pointless. It is better to do something else.” Pablo Picasso
Judith Bergerson / JackPine Studio 