Uncertain Dawn

I came close to completing three canvases today, but alas I had to call it quits to get some sleep.  Uncertain Dawn is just going so well. That's the working title at least.  I've been debating between Leave Me Alone and Uncertain Dawn.  I feel like Uncertain Dawn might be the ultimate pick.  There's a wonderful ill at ease, but hopeful spirit within this work.  It's hard to explain, but there are times that you are alone in the early morning watching the sun rise and there's an uncertainty in the world or at least within you that you in turn transpose onto the world.  I feel that way when I look at this painting.  It's that moment of uncertainty and ironic unlimited possibility that scares you and invigorates your spirit all within the same moment. Like that country song that my wife listens to all the time "The day is mine to do with as I wish".

Monday

Spent a the evening hammering out the arc of the bridge.  It's been tricker than I thought it would be.  I guess the test will be if I walk into the studio tomorrow evening and if I feel satisfied with it.  Other than that I've been trying to figure out if a flourish motif or different large text elements would enhance or detract from the overall composition.  I'm leaning to the side of using subtle collage elements with a focus on texture and distressed paper elements. Just a little readable text here and there, but very minimal.  The sky will become more dynamic with time.  There are a lot of drips that seem to really work that I have to be very careful to preserve, which should prove to be very challenging as work continues.

As work continues I'm working really hard to keep a certain mixture of focused and blurry elements within the piece.  I feel that when you look at a structure as large as the Fremont Bridge it's more of an awareness of the totality of the structure while you focus in on different elements.  When your focusing in on the rivets of the frame the distant shore drops out of focus and the opposite is true when you focus in on the distant shore.  It's how we truly see and experience the world.

6 Days and The Bridges Commission

I finished 6 Days tonight, which feels really good to have the first finished work within the studio out of the way.  It's a really interesting work considering that it started as a print piece for last year's print show.  Some how if felt right to take it all the way into a finished painting rather than letting it stay a print piece. I changed the title of the work along the way. Ironically, I feel this work is almost a sketch for the 50 x 70" canvases above.

These two canvases are the Bridge Commission.  I took Friday off, so that I had the whole weekend to build them and finish 6 Days up. On the left is going to be the Fremont Bridge piece and on the right will be the Steel Bridge. I just finished priming the Steel Bridge piece, so the studio reeks of the wonderful smell of gesso. This will probably be the last rendering of the Steel Bridge for a while.  This will be the fourth work I've painted.  I'm going to mix this one up a little though and use a different photo reference.  On my last morning ride in Portland the day we departed for home.  I photographed a barge pass underneath.

Thanks to my friend Shawn I have a ton of photos of the Fremont bridge to choose from. It's going to be hard to narrow the reference photo down since there are so many good shots.