Goauche studies

As I have been prepping for two upcoming shows my sketchbook has been in constant use. From silly little scribbles to full blown studies each one has helped me find the types of paintings I am most gravitating towards right now. I usually have a few different types of work going and these series can stay completely separate in their final design, but I've noticed by spending more time in my sketchbook these ideas have been coalescing. By stripping out the color in some of my previous building paintings I'm more thoughtful in my approach to using color when I bring back a full palette.

I often think about authenticity with art and what makes mine, or yours, or that other artist's work, authentic. My sketches, to me, have some immediacy in creation and feeling that can get lost when I switch to oils and paint on canvas. It would be nice if this innate 'sketch' quality could show itself more and more in my oil painting. My attempts to bring my mind together with my medium has me constantly reshaping my approach to oils. I've started off a new painting using small brushes only, then on the next new one I started with big brushes only. I've been mixing big batches of paint having both thin, transparent and thick, buttery qualities. I've switched from bristle to sable fluently throughout a painting's development. As of yet I don't think this more authentic feel maintained in a sketch has really translated to the oils. Thus my constant experimenting in my approach to best accompany my thought process on the day.
At least that's how it feels on this lazy sunday, and maybe my mind hasn't kicked into gear.







I will be matting and framing these studies to accompany the oil paintings for the shows coming up. It seems important to lay bare how I do my work and show how I think, giving the viewer a greater perspective of my process. Both studies are done in gouache and are 9"x5.5" ish.

I continue to do these small still-lifes that just focus on a single fruit or perhaps a small cluster of fruit. I am not trying to render the object as a technical exercise but as a way to move beyond what could be fairly bland subject matter towards allusions to the entire process of life and death, that is encapsulated by a ripening piece of fruit.

As I am prepping for shows in the summer and fall I will put those paintings up closer to these dates. So maybe less fully realized paintings but lots of studies and sketchbook pages, which is what this blog of mine was about in the first place.