9 x 12 inches, acrylic on gessoed, thin birch panel. I like small panels, but I must like paper a lot better because almost everything I do is on paper. I like panels for encaustic painting, which I've also been meaning to get back to. I like that panels can be displayed easily....they can be more simply framed, or just leaned up on a shelf. I also loved doing a previous series in which I laminated paper onto panel first, and then gessoed the whole thing. The surfaces of those were beautiful to paint on, but there was a fair amount of work that went into the preparation of each panel.
I always love watching the mark making that happens all through each piece. More and more, I tell myself that the sequence of little decisions, how each mark fits into the thing beside it, how the paint sits, how the colour creates interactions with neighbours, is really what the whole thing is about. There are no extras. Each part fits. And of course, understand that every mark made is like a mark made in the dark.....I really don't know how it will fit in advance. What I try to see and do is believe in each mark....closely watch it happen as the picture is made. This is just a way of saying that marks can't be made randomly and carelessly. Every 'touch' made will add up to a picture....so every 'touch' is important.....as important as every other....
Don't feel you have to figure everything out in advance. Figure some things out in advance, but a lot of things will be figured out in the process of making....
This is a view of Garden Hill, 15 minutes north of Port Hope.....a view that I pass very often.
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