Posts from the ‘weather’ Category
It’s still winter
The weather outside has mellowed a little, but I continue to paint these simplified winter scenes on mini (6×6) canvases with a palette knife. In my head it’s still winter.
Winter 5 is fascinating to me. Seen up close it’s just a mess of pale colors and raised paint ridges. When you pull back a little it becomes an abstracted winter scene. There are bands of clouds in the sky, trees and even a path or two. At the time I painted it, my nose was about a foot from the painting and yet I was painting the scene you can only really “see” from a distance.
In Winter 6, I simplified the colors, modified one of my favorite trees a little and placed the land at an angle. I’m starting to like the way my shaky hands and the palette knife create the texture.
I brought back the yellow oxide for the clouds just over the top of the hill, but now that I re-examine it, Winter 7 doesn’t look like much of anything real. It’s the most abstracted of these mini paintings so far. For years, I struggled to abstract from the model, or from a real scene. Here it just happened.
And last but not least, Winter 8 is a little more representational, but still pretty abstract.
So with all of these Winter minis, I couldn’t create what I was trying to (smooth expanses of snow with muted, vague shapes). The palette knife made that unrealistic. Instead, I’ve created mini abstract paintings with a lot of texture. And I like them — some more than others — but I like them.
But in my head, it’s still winter, so I think I’ll try to recreate these scenes using my preferred acrylic on raw canvas. To be continued…
Compensating for the gray weather
It’s just started to snow so, of course, I’m compensating for the gray weather by painting bright colorful paintings.
First: a sunset. I’m not sure it’s finished so you can still see the staples holding the canvas flat.
Next: some Fall foliage (strictly from my immagination, since it doesn’t exist out there anymore … at least not anywhere near me in New York City).
Actually, I’m not sure either one is finished, but they are definitely making me feel happy. What would I do if I couldn’t paint?
Ruth Hurd | BLOG 