It’s here - the first painting release of the year! Honestly, it was a bit of a surprise to me that I even made this happen. With a busy holiday season of work, family, and travel, I had not painted for several weeks!
As often happens though, even though my hands weren’t actively making art, my mind was whirring with ideas. I’m excited to share some of my inspiration and process with you below!
Bottom left: work by Kit Porter; Top middle: work by Renee Bouchon
The theme of this group show is color, and it is fitting that the start of my inspiration was color.
I am a huge fan of the work of Renee Bouchon and Kit Porter. Their works are very different from each other, but to me they both use color and form in such stunning, simple, and unexpected ways. I share two close ups of their work above whose color stories in particular resonated with me and served as a jumping off point. Specifically, the deep, orangey red - a color I rarely use - just tugged at me.
Next, I compiled a few photos I had taken over the last two years - from Duke Gardens, Maine, our vegetable garden, and a local flower farm (Fernrock Farms) to serve as reference photos. I use these photos as guides when I am initially blocking out and drawing the flowers, but then often discard them as the painting process progresses.
The very first week in January that I had off from my regular job I threw myself into painting. Normally, I work background to foreground, however for these paintings I worked on the foreground first, and then filled in the background - almost carving out the shapes with the background color… It made me acutely conscious of the negative spaces around the flowers and stems. I love the interesting shapes that came out of this slight change in process.
Every so often there are paintings I make that surprise even me - it’s almost like I am watching them unfold before me. That’s what I find so magical about the painting process.
The final paintings will be available at Well and Wonder, February 5th at 10AM. I’m so glad to share the inspiration and process with you and hope you enjoyed hearing and seeing about it!