Thinking small is a big idea!

SOLD   Intersection #11  24" x 28"  Oil and wax on canvas
(click on image for larger view)

I'm back with renewed enthusiasm for oil and cold wax medium in this latest addition to my Intersection series.

I recently completed 18 mini canvases for Co-Art Gallery's Annual Mini Canvas Sale coming up next month. The exercise taught me tons in the loosening up department and in the make-fewer-marks school of abstraction. The mini canvases I did measured 4" x 5", and think about it--you can only apply so many strokes in that small space, which practically forces one into abstraction. I worked the minis in oil and wax, and I used only oil sticks and palette knife--no brushes, to apply rough, larger marks in paint. The work was extremely liberating, fun, fast, and satisfying. I turned some of the minis into printed greeting cards, and I took photos, which I'll share with you around Christmas time.

Well, I've been noodling around the studio for weeks since the minis, doing watercolors and drawing and experimenting with oil pastels, working small and tight, and feeling anything but inspired.

Completed this week, Intersection 11 (above) felt great to paint! Finally! It is larger than I've worked in years at 24" x 28". It's painted entirely with oil sticks, palette knives, and old credit cards for scrapers. I used lots and lots of Dorlands Cold Wax medium with my oils, and I'm thinkin' this is the way I should feel about painting. 

I highly recommend this exercise for painters whose work is too tight and hard edged. Try creating big images and big impact on a tiny canvas and see what happens.

Love is blind

Sailors  18"x 24"  oil and cold wax on canvas

The deadline for submissions to the BSSS Annual Juried Art Exhibition - Interiors and Still Lifes here in Staunton, VA was today. My abstract still life was completed and submitted in the nick of time.

There is this thing painters do to themselves all too often--they fall in love. They fall in love with their painting, and like falling in love with another human being or a pet, or a new couch, love often blinds us to an important overlooked truth. Like, this painting isn't really all that successful. or I can't keep a cat--I'm allergic to cats. or I don't need a new couch nor can I afford one.

Is this a successful still life or is love blind? We'll see. There is also one other overriding truth in the art-competing-with-other-art arena . . . the jury, or in this case, the judge. And in every case humans, like it or not, naturally harbor preferences, biases, likes, dislikes.

I submitted a second, smaller pastel in addition to the oil.

Light Reading  10.5 x 10.5 pastel on sanded paper

Updates on the competition will follow in early July. Wish me luck.