How it begins…anew

It is dark now, outside the studio windows.
Inside it is still early, by this artist’s clock,
but my eyes are weary and my head is thick with days of studying, sorting and pondering. After my two months of rehab hiatus I am back at my day job and it’s time to narrow down the candidates for the coming year’s worth of paintings.

I confess to feeling some pressure about this after raising the bar with last year’s Reclamation Series. Focusing on a theme which threaded throughout a larger body of work was both challenging and creatively stimulating…so I want to play on those swings again. But where to start ?

An interesting consequence of taking the rare “vacation” from our annual fall Vineyard excursion this year, is that I don’t have thousands of “new” photos and sketches from which to leap. Thus the last few days of reviewing the many years’ worth of archived images and ideas.

I have several compositions which have been patiently awaiting their turn at the easel and keep nudging at my elbow so they get first dibs. Some of those were roughly sketched out years ago and the artist who is looking at them anew today is seeing a radically different way to bring them to the canvas. This incubation period is something I have come to trust in completely so, now, it’s all about listening.

As of the end of this day,  I have a stack of sketches. The next job is to make decisions about panel sizes. I’ve got about 25 in storage and 37 new ones in mid-production which gives me plenty of options. Then I can pick one or two which are the closest to being ready to paint and get myself in front of that easel. It seems to be best to let the editing of the big list happen in the background…to percolate while I concentrate on lifting the tiny brushes.

My soul needs to be painting.

Brushes Up !

brushwork