Porch at night

     I've had this idea for a painting of our porch for a few years now. It's a space we use a lot, mostly in the Spring and the Fall, when it's neither too hot or too cold outside. I started doing drawings for this one in March, testing out a few different angles and sizes in my sketchbook:

sketchbook 9" x 12"

sketchbook 9" x 12"

     This last drawing is larger and I experimented with having a figure in it. Painter John Hull came to my studio at the start of this painting and he told me how he makes cut outs of figures on paper and moves them around within a drawing of the space he is painting. I tried this with my daughter posing on the bench, but I felt that the space would seem too crowded with a figure.

pencil, 21" x 18"

     In my interiors, I've been investigating these near and far spaces, and the porch offered a perfect stage for this indoor/outdoor space. I was interested also in how different light is portrayed in a single image; string lights vs. fading sunset, warm interior space verses cool outdoor space. The composition ordered itself symmetrically, but I was interested in how the triangles re-iterated themselves and how your eye bounced around the patterns. The symmetry deflected at times by the thrust of the table and glow of the drawing on the easel.
      From the drawings I blocked in the darks on a toned linen canvas. I took progression shots along the way, usually after each painting session: 

   The table in the foreground was initially empty, but one night while I was set up painting, my wife walked through from outside and placed the flowers in the vase on the table. I put them in quickly that night, perfectly serving as a counterpoint to my daughters drawing on the easel across from it.

     The painting slowly built up over a long period of time, the sweet spot of the session being when I raced to set things up so I could get those 15 minutes of purple/blue light as the sun finally sunk. Trees in the distance dissolving into fuzzy silhouettes against the sky.  I worked on this one vigorously over 3 or 4 months, usually about twice a week for 2-3 hours at a time. As the painting went on, I started working more and more without the motif, in my studio, tweaking things here and there, building up the surface and marks. Here's the finished version:

oil on linen, 22" x 24"

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"

Front Yard (progression)

   Recently, I have started documenting some of the larger, more sustained paintings in the studio through photographs. Each photo usually represents a single painting session (sometimes I miss one...) When I photograph the painting, it allows me to see it in another way; in this case, condensed through the photographic 'eye' verses my own eyes. By shrinking it down (and sometimes flipping it around on the computer) I'm able to see the image in a fresh way. Of course, I do this in the studio too, sometimes looking at the painting in a mirror from across the room, or painting some passages with the actual painting upside down on the wall or easel. I guess I find it interesting to see how a painting 'gets built', and I hope you do too. Here's the latest one, "Front Yard":

 

Final state: 22.5" x 27"

Front Yard

   

in progress: 22.5" x 27"

     Put some time into this one today. Between ducking back into my studio from the rain and setting up again outside in the front yard, the greens took on an intense chroma from all the rain we've been having. Everything was damp and wet today, and it will probably be a completely different scene when I return outside. I had an initial underlayer which was done in the studio from the photo which inspired the painting. I needed to move things around a bit before getting everything back into alignment outside (this usually happens when I block things in from a photograph). The distortion is subtle, but bothersome none the less.
     The light has shifted significantly since March, when I planned this whole thing out. The setting sun was occurring right about in the middle of the canvas, but has now shifted over to behind our house on the right side. I think I'll just work through it; I either put the painting on hold until the right light situation occurs again, or I just move forward with the current season.
     This scene in our front yard has captivated me recently; it's what I look out at while parked in our driveway with the baby sleeping. This sometimes lasts a few hours, and depending on the time of day, the light can be stunning. I'm looking forward to carving out the space of the trees and branches amidst all these greens, and creating a stillness with the tire swing balancing between the tree trunk and the house.

The Backyard (finished)

I finally finished up this painting last week (click here to see original post). I had started it in the spring, and worked on it over about 4 or 5, 3-hour sessions. The hydrangea flowers were painted at just the right time, in mid June, when they were really bright and crisp. I got it about 80% there, and finished the rest of it from memory in the studio. (The heat, mosquitoes and general change in the colors prevented me from finishing it up on site). It's usually a good idea to do anyway (painting away from the motif); it sort of frees you up and allows you to see the picture as it really is.