back to the painting board....

I've started painting again after a summer of photography and some drawing. I feel a bit rusty and restrained, but I'm sure that I'll shake that in a couple more paintings. Here are two small works (4"x12") that I made one night when I could not sleep.

This is an oil, mimicking the drawing techniques I was using last winter for the 100 WAVES series. Oil tends to get a little more muddy than ink if I work to fast, but in this instance I enjoy the more somber tones.


This is another oil in which I started like the one above, but it just wasn't working, wasn't capturing the feel of water or a wave like I wanted it to, so I switched the colors and used a knife to squish the paint around in the motion of a wave. I think the success here is how the paint that sqeezed out from the side of the knife reminds me of water. Pretty easy considering that the paint is a super viscous liquid....
This little painting has influenced the way I am thinking about the acrylic pieces I started last winter. I stretched two canvases and will experiment with what I learned (in the acrylic project)