Periodically, I send updates to the folks who backed my kickstarter project. I’ve been feeling out of sorts when it comes to my social activities online lately. I’m wondering if writing some blog posts (instead of aimlessly refreshing twitter, reading blogs, or checking Facebook) might bring me back into a good groove. So, instead of posting this “for backers only” via kickstarter, here’s an update for anyone who visits this blog about how the “Three New Paintings” project is going.
I have three paintings actively in progress, though (as the backers know) it’s unlikely I’ll have three finished in time for July’s show — I was too ambitious and didn’t think through how long things take and how short June 1 to June 30 is.
One is, so far, exclusively oil pastels. It’s 10×10 which is smaller than I’ve used in a while. With this one, I’m finding the line between “a picture” and “a painting.” It’s a nice picture right now, but there are several sections (most of it) that are almost entirely uninteresting. I’ll work on that tonight to see about turning it into a painting (where each area feels complete).
The second is 20×24. I started this before the smaller one, but it is of a related image. This is the first time that I’m making paintings that are different views or portrayals of a similar image. With this, I’ve added some layers of very thin (lots of medium) paints over a large part of the painting but am still using only oil pastels on much of it.
The last is the largest (I forget the dimensions) and it’s one I started almost a month ago. I stumbled into the idea of what I thought of as making layers, but is apparently called “glazing.” An old friend of mine (I babysat for her children in the 90s) sent me a message describing her passionate position on glazing — using thin layers of paint, allowing the layers to dry in between, showing the luminescence and depth of the previous layers.

the painting where I stumbled into “layering”

my feet 🙂 and the mixing I did when I painted a bit this afternoon

just about finished (for this afternoon’s layers). also, the shade or sunlight (?) make this look much bluer than it actually is

finished (for today) — this shows the colors more accurately

I can already tell that blogging won’t be the solution to my dissonance about online life. I’ve already been simply “not online” a lot more than is usual for me (it didn’t seem to be helping) but I suppose I’ll go do more of that for a while. Thank you for visiting and reading my stuff here. 🙂