Painting your way

 When I went to my summer house two weeks ago I was all set to paint my heart out, but I've done a lot of thinking about my new Remnants paintings but not much actual painting. Right now I have four finished.  Because I usually start my work with general ideas and a lot of intuition, I let the work lead me.  Somewhere around painting 4 or 5, I begin to paint myself into where I need to be.

Talking about my work with other artists has always been helpful to my development.  I am very lucky to be able to walk up the road to Catherine's house ....

 and request a critique (in the broadest sense). By the end of the day we were drinking tea and chatting about critique in general and my work in particular.

 Catherine is  Catherine Beaudette who spends her summers in Newfoundland and teaches at Ontario College of Art and Design  in Toronto.  I find  conversations about my work very  helpful if for no other reason than to confirm my understandings  at one point in time.  Talking about what you are trying to accomplish often brings you to new realizations. Understanding comes  as you search for words to express your struggle.

The paintings  are becoming less about objects in a distant  landscape as the first one was

 and more about the objects themselves.

I am zooming in more and more and using more abstract sections to reinforce the texture/feel of the objects.   I should have know that I would struggle with representing anything at a distance when I see everything in exquisite detail, so I am back to my objects and what they are telling me about their history/ marks of time.  I plan to manipulate scale even more drastically in my upcoming experimentation. I'm using my time back in town to get new image transfers ready.  Stay tuned.  Unfortunately there are no posts when I only have access to dial up internet.  My patience needs to be saved for more important things.