Painting notes | October 18
I have been meaning to write more about my painting/process/thoughts, and figured that maybe by posting to my blog, I'd have more motivation to keep it going. Here's what I'm thinking about today, really me talking to myself, but then again not...

These ideas keep popping to the surface: layers, excavation, revealing secrets, but also to hide information. To make it more work to get at the heart of the matter, less obvious, to obscure, be elusive. Sometimes I feel that my paintings have become too obvious. And the landscape isn't obvious. Or when it is, it can hardly be painted. A sunset. Flaming fall color... a rainbow. Right, not so much.... It's the subtle that is really fabulous. Might be that summer is past and that landscape can be over the top in as far as color and just general brilliance goes. I'm ready for the fall color to move on.....

I need to both engage my eye and imagination, but also my hand. Brain, heart, hand? Can i abstract paintings from the plein air paintings/sketches? There are definitely recurring elements in the paintings to consider: horizontal bands. treelike in distance. sky. roads/pathways. clouds.

Drawing: must draw today. Must draw every day. Richard Serra said so.