Where Was I?

Archives - 1991 - Pink Sky Landscape - sml w/c

One thing and another has me totally sidetracked this week, never did find anything resembling routine mode. Spent a couple of hours in the studio yesterday and I think I'm close to wrapping up three or four landscapes. The intent is to take these experiments/ studies/ investigations and have them relate to each other, as well as fit into my norm without striking an odd note of discord. I'll show pics when I'm closer to being satisfied with the effort.

The exercise has done two things... both turned me off of landscapes and turned me on to them all over again. I've been flipping through lots of images: online and off, photos and paintings, eyes wide open to all things between me and the horizon. The imagined paintings are far better than the real efforts. My imagination is fickle and hard to pin down... in other words, I ain't there yet. The genre is so... umm... overpainted (?) I get close to what I think is a terrific direction and stumble across a half dozen images that remind me that it's all been done, even my way. Trouble is, the sheer joy of loving the tree, the rock, the horizon and wanting to depict it in realistic form adds confusion to my abstract intent. There's no need for me to go there... it's not what I do best and my efforts leave me cold. So why does it keep showing up? Trying to take me where I don't want to go? Do I really know what I want or where I'm going? No.

So... once I get these out of the studio I think I'll start a new project, return to pure abstraction and see what happens. Hopefully, by changing my mental mode the subconscious might surprise me... (please!)

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But first, back to the lake for a couple of days. We're designing a boardwalk with steps to make our treks from the house to the water's edge a bit easier plus more boardwalk/decking along the water's edge. Looking ahead to the time when we will appreciate having a flat, stable waking surface on which to take our exercise. Just the process of getting it built will provide plenty of 'exercise' for some time! With cooler fall weather beckoning, motivation isn't a problem...