May 29/2011, 11:40 a.m., Lost Dog Hill

May 28/2011, 4:00 p.m., Lost Dog Hill

2 paintings in one day

Today 2 paintings from yesterday's diagrams made on the evening walk. There are times when I want to avoid inevitability.....I don't want the picture to look predictable. Rather hard to do entirely when the picture needs this and that....it's a landscape for god's sake. So I tell myself well, maybe it could be all black...no colour at all....as a way to open up the process completely. I didn't make these all black, but that was the pre-thinking for it....and the process did feel very freeing. I try to do lots of mental things to free up the process.....part of the 'set up' for each picture. Slightly different guidelines lead to different series.

Currently I'm looking at some colours pasted to my door where everything was pared down to nothing.....3 colours together....and wondering if it's as good as anything else I do. I think not, but there's something to the question. Everything should be easy, and there are lots of things we tell ourselves pictures need, when in fact they may not. Making the guidelines you choose to follow is more than half of the enterprise.

Coyote Hill, May 20th

I've been trying to capture these bright, cheerful days of early May....cool air, very fresh greens that haven't reached their full tone yet, plenty or both rain and sun...always a time of much hope.

11 x 10.25 inches on heavy gessoed artist's paper. I ran out of Payne's grey and worked with mixtures from black in the sky....haven't done that in years, and it's interesting trying to get black to behave like a colour. Fresh May greens under an overcast sky.

May Bloom #2

I started this collage at school, but I ran out of time....had to go supervise a detention. I thought it would be abandoned because I don't usually interrupt in the middle of a work...but I did come back to it later that evening at home. The initial idea must have been strong enough..............I was walking down a very steep hill....looking into the distance at the fresh bloom of leaves coming out from the dark stand of trees......the effect lasts only for a few days each year.

May Bloom

Interview with Agnes Martin

May Light

Video Interview with Painter Lois Dodd

April Swamp

Old Apple Orchard, Early May

Made from a very brief diagram scribbled on my lunch hour.....I sometimes escape to this peaceful little country road. There is pencil on top of the acrylic in this one.....it's a bit bigger than what I normally make.....10 x 11 inches on gessoed paper.

Recent Collages

I decided to keep these two collages without any painting additions in the end stages. The pencil found its way onto a few shapes.

So far the types of production seems to go as follows:

1) paintings from small diagrams
2) paintings with photo reference
3) collage paintings from both methods above
4) invented collages from memory, with or without painted additions
5) landscape paintings from invention