art in process

Riffing on Reality

While speaking with my mother I noticed she often brings the past into the present with the past being as real to her as the present moment. Her memory issues started me thinking about how different realities are represented in paintings. With the painting I am working on now I am bringing in various images to underpin the idea that many realities may be described in one painting. Since I utilize artworks by other artists to inspire my own, I have used a watercolor landscape for my first layer of reality. This is the dream layer because it is less clearly defined than the ‘realistic’ layer to come next. As in a dream, it is in some places just an outline, barely recognizable. Thus far I am pleased with the result: a dream like reality achieved with thinly applied layers of paint.

Is This Hell? In process, the dream layer, 30 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

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Where I Am Now

Today was the first day I felt I could work in my studio in many weeks. I began this 16 x 20 inch oil sketch. It is a preliminary study for a larger 30 x 40 inch painting I will be making. The figure in the background and the snake in the foreground are taken from a drawing in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum. The dog is Sammie, of course, while the figures are models on the Croquis Cafe website. The composition’s subject is how I see things now. That is rather like hell. However, the presence of Sammie, whom I only added towards the end of the workday seems to indicate I am feeling less hopeless. A good sign.

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