Finishing a painting is my least favorite part. It should feel great right? Fulfilling? But I always feel kind of blah about it. Even when I really like the work. I’m a starter, not a finisher. I love starting, I love ideas, love the potential in things. Grinding through to the end, not my cup of tea. But it must be done.
I do sometimes wonder though, what if I just left the painting at the start? Can an underpainting or first layer just be it? I feel like sometimes it could be but I’m not securely in a place where I can judge that yet. It’s something in the back of my mind though. Maybe a a full post on this in the future. I do think there really is something in finishing a painting in one session for me..
In the meantime, I’m buckling down and finishing up. For one, I’m going on a short vacation and I know when I get back I won’t be interested in anything that’s in its middle stage. I always come back from a break with no desire to work on whatever is sitting around in the studio. I want a fresh start. After two weeks I’m a new person who needs new paintings.
Another reason to press towards finishing is I finally built a website and I need some stuff to put on it lol. I have a lot of work on paper that I quite like and feels practical for shipping. I’ve been cutting mats for months (why do they take sooo long!) and flattening and varnishing larger pieces. I love the idea of several of my inky landscapes hung up together. I think I might just pop 6-9 of them on my wall. They feel very geological to me, like aerial images.
Sorting my work into categories on the website has been interesting. I’m not sure if it comes across as cohesive as it should but I feel like I can’t help that. I have 4 categories of work that I keep painting and they each just kind of have to stand on their own. Again and again I’m painting: gardens and florals, abstract figures or heads, very abstract landscapes in ink or watercolor, less abstract beaches/bays/forest in acrylic. I cycle through each trying to bring each subject closer to what I’m searching for in them.
I discovered recently that to bring my garden and floral paintings closer to my ideal I need to be working in oil. I love using acrylic when I’m painting florals large and on loose canvas. I use a lot of dry brush contrasted with watery drips. But for small floral pieces I’m looking for more of an impressionistic finish that oil is so good at.
Of course the trouble with oil is it takes forever to dry. I prefer not to use solvents because of the mess (I’ve just been using solvent-free gel, no gamsol even). But I don’t know if that’s going to work on a start to finish painting. Because I do like a loose, messy, runny underpainting. Either I’ll have to do that in acrylic and add oil on top or I’ll have to prepare myself an area for mess. I’m leaning towards sticking with the acrylic underpainting. That’s what I did with this set of Golden Afternoon paintings. I had been working on them in acrylic and pastel for a while and it just wasn’t getting there, until I switched to oil. When these are dry they’ll be on the website under my Alice in Wonderland inspired paintings. Another theme I can’t get enough of!
I’m also finishing up a small collection of abstract figures that I came to realize were inspired by my recent surgery. Not sure if many painters are like this but I often find I don’t know the meaning behind what I’m painting until after the fact. I’m just drawn to a form, line, or color and then when I look at it with fresh eyes I realize, oh yeah that’s obviously about this thing lol. I feel that there are one or two more of these forms to come but I don’t know the shape of them yet. Maybe each one is representing a point I am in post-op and the future forms just haven’t happened yet..
I’m still loving watercolor and I recently discovered it looks great on some panels I got from Jerry’s. The surface absorbs the watercolor in really interesting ways. I’m tempted to paint about ten more of these bright and loose undersea landscapes but I think I may wait until after vacation. I combined the watercolor with some Unison pastels I just got from the Jackson’s sale and I am so glad I bought them. It’s getting to where I have too many pastels to justify lol but I just love a small color coordinating set. It’s so easy to grab and map out a painting.
While away, we’ll be in NYC and then London, I’m going to be looking for inspiration, of course I’m always on the look out. But specifically, I really want to take advantage of summer blooms and find some florals to paint and maybe some river landscapes. Dare I paint a boat?? I’ve been drawn to boats lately but also it feels very literal for me so I dunno. Well who knows what I’ll find. I may come back with a completely new state of mind.