Day Eleven: "Murder of Crows"

Happy Halloween!

With my favorite holiday at hand I'm taking a break from painting today and looking at a different type of influence/reference material.  I've talked about looking at other artist's work to see how they handled problems with color, composition, or surfaces.  But what about our own work?  What can our own images teach us about where we are with our work today?

Back on "Murder Of Crows" (MOC) day three, I wrote that one of my goals with this project was to allow the painting to lead me, and I would make a conscious effort to be receptive to learning from the painting as it grew.  When building a body of work, usually one painting will influence another; a problem that is overcome in one instance may help me in another, a color combination or  a new brushstroke can be recognized and redefined to fit the canvas at hand.  This is an excellent way to maintain a level of consistency in your work.   I have several around my studio at any given time, and they change from project to project. 

The first inklings of ideas that I associate with MOC began with this painting,

September Rain. It is an 18"X 24" oil on canvas, that was completed plein aire (working on location, outside) over the course of three days.  While working on this painting I could feel a new sensibility taking hold in my mind.  I was able to recognize the rhythms before me for the first time, and I was able to draw with the tip of my brush leaf patterns as I'd never been able to before.  It was very exciting!

On the fourth day, still plein aire, I painted this small diptych (two separate paintings, that together tell a story, think of poetry) on panel, each panel is11''X10" and painted with oil paint.  I call it Twigs.  In this instance I was focusing only on the rhythms that I was recognizing,  and I was striving only to give enough information to satisfy what I was feeling.  These two pieces appeared very quickly, in a matter of hours (they're very small) and upon completion I began work on a 20"X 20'"canvas.

Back in the studio, a few days later, Thicket was the resulting image of that work.  This painting I see as a true teacher for what I want to accomplish with MOC.  A friend upon seeing this painting said I was revisiting my historical Dutch roots, with the dark moody palette, and macabre scene.  She compared the work to the contemporary allegories of Od Nerdrum.

In a strange way I recognized that I'd touched on something, and I looked anew at my large four foot square surface leaning against the wall.

Paint well...