Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Tomorrow's Past



Work on Tomorrow's Past continues.  It will be the first canvas completed in the series.  Both Tomorrow's Past and Coffee Stained Morning have the same pallet, so I have a feeling that Too Much Caffeine will be following suit in some regard.


I've pretty much figured out what these works are about and in many ways they're very autobiographical and relate to what's going on in my life, while telling a story independent of me. My thought process behind the three pieces of the triptych is that each painting is a different morning experienced by someone riding their bike to work in the morning along the same river.  Each morning is different and as such the rider is noticing different spots along the river.  Of course their perception of each morning is tainted by the events going on in their  life.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Uncertain Dawn's Triptych

 Coffee Stained Morning
 Tomorrow's Past
Too Much Caffeine

Back from our trip up to Portland, OR and back down the coast.  It was a great trip, but I have to admit I'm grateful to be back in the studio knocking out paintings.  I will post some of the plein air works I performed on vacation.  There's nothing like painting on the beach.  The sunburn, the bugs and the wonderful ocean air.  I have to say in some ways it's much harder to paint on location than in the comfort of your studio even if it's currently 100+ degrees.  I think there is a lot of improvising that takes place since you don't have all the tools, materials or really even the time working in a studio space grants you.  It reminded me a lot of life drawing classes when you had to practice the economy of line and stroke to capture as much of you could of a model's essence within 15 minutes.  I'll be doing it a lot more for just that reason.


This is the triptych that is the result of Uncertain Dawn. I had a bit of a caffeine headache tonight and felt that the paintings had the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning after being up too late and drinking too much soda and coffee.  The daylight can almost be stabbing, but your mind is hazy whilst still reflecting or dwelling upon the thoughts that kept you up so late in the first place.  I guess that plays right into what an uncertain dawn is all about really.  Being in a place in your life where your hopeful, with moments of being bright and happy, but still have the black clouds hanging just off to the side.