New Interior

   Here's an interior painting I'm working on right now. The idea came a few weeks ago while my daughter and I were watching a movie together, and as I came back into the room from the kitchen, the entire painting appeared to me in a flash. The motivation behind all my work is a desire to capture some sort of emotional response to the world; sometimes I have to dig for it and find it, but in this case, it hit me all at once. That's usually when I'm glad that my IPhone is in my pocket, so I can pull it out and take a quick shot to capture the moment. The next day I did a pencil sketch in the room and figured out the size of the canvas I wanted to use:

pencil on paper; 9" x 11"

   After toning the linen, I then proceeded to block the shapes in with a palette knife and large brush, striving for the overall light and mood of the painting:

oil on linen; 15" x 20"

   After a few sessions set up in front of the motif, the original vision for the painting began to emerge:

   I used the initial photo of my daughter as a reference for her portrait in the painting. I'm slowly starting to introduce the figure into my interiors, while still holding on to a sense of mystery and quietness in the work. Here's where it stands so far:

finished; 15" x 20"