Two, 9x 12, oil on panelThis is a figure painting that I did several months ago, and it was painted on a small panel, about 9 x 12 inches or so. I have to admit, I don’t often get attached to any of my paintings- perhaps the reason is that letting go of works gives me a reason to paint more. This is one of the paintings that sold at the show in Greenwich, and yet, I was sad to let it go. It just has a spontaneity, a suggestion of form, that I often strive for yet seldom attain. In addition, there is something cool about seeing one figure nearly finished, and the other just briefly addressed. Well, I’ll stop patting myself on the back, and I’ll talk more about the piece.
A few artists friends and I were talking about the difficulty of designing large canvases- it is so difficult to paint life size figures, because it is difficult to see the whole canvas. You feel like you need a few hundred feet to step back, in order to see the whole thing. But, my friends and I all simultaneously discovered the usefulness of smaller paintings. In a smaller, spontaneous sketch, you can capture the entire gesture, skin tone, composition, etc., in just strokes, and then that image can be repeated on a larger scale. This is an approach that I’ve only just began, so I’m excited to see where it leads. And, in the meantime, I am really enjoying doing these smaller works, as they have an aesthetic all unto themselves.
