Bye Bye Painting!

I’m currently working on my next body of work for a gallery show in Anacortes, Washington; one of my favorite little coastal towns in the ever-beautiful Pacific Northwest. I’ll be showing at the Scott Milo gallery and I really enjoy showing at such a warm and welcoming place. Kathy, the curator, always selects nice pieces (oh, I hear a horn tooting) and does a wonderful job of displaying the paintings alongside some gorgeous sculptures and jewelry.

The topic that came to mind while working on this new body (no not mine, though it could use some work) is how tough it is to give up on a painting once I’ve committed to it but can’t get all the way in to it. Yes, this just happened. While I think commitment is a great thing, and has served me well in lots of ways, I’m learning to let go of some of it. Finally. So, I am tossing more paintings lately. Well, okay, not completely tossing them but stopping them in their tracks and using them for something else later.

Here’s my analogy for this; I liken this to a bad relationship that consumes lots of time and energy but you know it’s just not working. I could just keep putting more and more paint on the canvas and try to cover up all the ugly stuff I don’t like but if I did that several things would happen:

A. I wouldn’t be happy while I was doing it.
B. I would be wishing I was working on something else.
C. I’d be grumpy because deep down I would know I was wasting my time and creativity.
D. I would be working on this which means I wouldn’t be working on my potential masterpiece.

I’m off to work on something I love. I'll be back...

Tuxedo Maine Coon Oil Painting

"One Good Scratch"
8 x 10
Oil on Panel
SOLD (thank you :)

I often ask myself what it is that seems so endearing about every single move Biscuit makes. In this painting I have captured one of the activities she probably performs at least twenty times throughout the day; that yummy little scratch right behind her left ear. But, look how graceful she looks when she's doing it! Even when she is scratching, her inside beauty radiates through to the outside.

In this oil painting on panel, I combined fine-detail brush work and highly textured palette knife work to create an exciting piece of textural art. Once completed and dried, I hand-brushed 8 coats of crystal-clear varnish, patiently waiting (not my strong suit) for each one to dry before applying the next. Parts of the painting look like shattered glass because of the richness of the varnish. In other parts of the painting, the texture of the panel is apparent. The overall painting has a very "deep" feel to it because of the varnish. I used what I think is the best varnish available - it's Gamblin and it is as clear as it can possibly be. Yum.