At the Foreigner's Club o/c 30x30

It has been a while since I posted anything. This blog reminds me that I have made a commitment to myself to keep painting and learning, and that learning requires a steady and continuing effort. The blog helps keep what is near to my heart on the "to do" list.

This is a studio painting from a photograph I took in Sorrento last month. I missed my paints while traveling, and was eager to get back to work when I got home.

This painting was a good counter to the workshop in Easton. There, I had been encouraged to slow down and think through each brush stroke, to have a plan and realize that plan methodically. That approach didn't work well for me because it just didn't feel right. This painting, which is larger than anything I have done in a long time, was done almost entirely in one day over several hours of painting fast with big brushes. I worked intuitively and didn't do a lot of thinking and planning. I have often thought that my goal in painting should be to get my head out of the process and paint from within, to find and trust a more direct route between the experience of seeing and the response of choosing colors, drawing and making marks on canvas. Painting days like this one set me back on the path to that good goal.