Reaching into the Past

Since we are snowed in I am able to work more than usual. I am excited about my current portrait of my husband and son. The photograph that I am basing the painting on is twenty-five years old. Since then I have been through so many different approaches to oil painting that they are all converging in my head as I paint this one. I started out using the traditional thin-to-thick method of layering oil paint but I have since explored many levels of the impasto technique. I still apply the paint in layers. Most oil paintings are made that way but I am often asked if I use a palette knife as the brushwork is visible on close inspection.

It is so exciting to look at the photograph and make visual decisions partly based on the photograph, partly based on my personal expression, and partly based on combining various impasto techniques. Painting is a magic act. I balance between control and accident and arm wrestle it down as Paul Frets once told me.

Here is another painting I want to add to my portfolio when the weather improves and I can get a good outdoor shot.

Bringing Back a Moment

I just completed a small painting of my twenty-five year old son Alan when he was two. The painting was done from part of an old photograph of him looking out the window of our apartment to the grass below. He often did this with such an intent look on his face.

With this painting I reached back in time and captured a visual experience that is infinitely more expressive and emotive than the photograph. When I look at the painting with it's strong brushwork and compelling color contrast I am so happy that I took up painting many years ago. It is a mystical experience that energizes my days and gives me purpose.

I wish I could upload it now but it is extremely wet. I am going to photograph it tomorrow and place it on ebay. I want to spread my excitement and joy throughout the world. I am now in fourteen states and counting.