Contstanly Curious!

"Along The Pumpkin Patch"

11x14 oil on linen panel

I've been really busy lately teaching and preparing for my show that opens November 4th at the Phipps Center in Hudson WI and runs through Dec. 12.  Between all the teaching and painting I've had little time to post new paintings, it's such a balancing act at times but there are times when we need to just leave the computer and all of life's 'little daily duties' alone and just paint!  This is why I'm so excited to have the week ahead of me with 5 days  of blocked out time in the studio to do just that!  Even taking the week off from teaching.

This piece is one I did a couple of weeks ago and am just posting now.  It was a beautiful day and I was eager to get out and paint but once I got set up and started I began to paint 'stuff' and it was going downhill quickly, instead of painting my impression of the day and all it's beauty in color.  I was about an hour into the painting and decided it would be better to save the panel and scrape the painting out.  So, I did.  Started cleaning up (about as cranky as I can get when I painting goes wrong. . . .)  when I looked out at the landscape I was standing in and had the breath taken from me for a moment with the beauty of the day and the color!  My spark was back, I slapped myself for forgetting for that hour what I was doing here, capturing color and atmosphere with my impression of this moment.  I started and finished my painting entirely painted with the palette knife in under an hour and absolutely love the honesty of what I captured.  As I grow, I'm becoming more and more interested in quality of paint and what I can do with the paint.  I've been thinking and experimenting more with than any other element lately and am so captivated by the endless possibilities of what can be done by being constantly curious!