the numinous

One of the great pleasures of being a painter is choosing to paint what tugs at your heart and your eye.
I was seeking a way to make visible the point where the spiritual and physical intersect. The most difficult part was figuring out how to convey the feel of immensity.
These three sky and sea scapes were the result. They are a gesture gratitude for the chance to be a witness in the world, a valentine to 'being itself', to quote Thomas Merton.

Four new paintings in the gallery

The painting are up in the gallery and I've sent out my own email notice. I've already had some kind responses and many of them cite the dawn painting as the one they want to see the most. The gallery has it, but did not hang it as they are concerned about how different it looks from my small, precise, detailed works. My instinct says it will find the right buyer, and be loved and appreciated.
We'll see how it works out.
Here's the email, with brevity as its chief virtue:
Four new works by Virginia Parker
Now showing at Twinhouse Gallery, 2815 Peachtree Road, 404-233-3433, Twinhouse.com
Two more in the Table for One series and two cloud-inspired works

Isle of Palm

Here's the beginning. I painted the sea yesterday and the sky today. Trying to figure out the best way to render the there/not there edges of clouds. It's from a photo I took on the Isle of Palm last spring. What I loved was the way the sky reflected in the saturated sand.

I'm working on this using three reference photos. I love that it shows three of the four elements - earth, air, water - and the fourth, fire, is implied by the light.

It's only the first layer, but I think it's going to break the cloud jinx.

Dawn sky

I've continued wrestling with the mackerel sky, I haven't given up, but I am in the weeds with it. I am missing something it needs. I've set it aside and returned to the first cloud painting, of a dawn. And To my surprise is was pure pleasure. So it isn't clouds per se, it's those particular mackeral clouds. With dawn, I had an entire day of painting bliss. Dawn isn't done - needs more layering, scumbling mostly, and more of the the atmosphere and the cloud vapor melting one into the other.


Meanwhile I've been juiced up with ideas and have been putting together references and canvases for a diptych of laundry hung on clothesline over canals, three more cloud paintings (storm at evening, morning over the sea and a dusk that glows with threads of light on the edges of the clouds), and the first of a four seasons still life in my garden.

Deciding on the size and type of canvas is something I grope towards. I know it when I see it, is my best method.

And there are two more in the Table for One series (at the Met in NYC and Table 1280 at the High - both museums) and two of coffee cups, gloves and postcards.

More than enough to keep me busy for a year. Better get started.

Mackerel skies

Back to the canvas and that mackerel sky. I'm realizing it's a marathon, not a sprint. Having fun exploring my new paints, trying out Radiant white, Caribbean blue and Payne's gray as part of my mix.
Though I am no where near done, I decided to post some 'in progress' photos. The bottom quarter is very undeveloped. There is no horizon in this work - no earth/trees - but the sunrise glow is part of the perspective. I've laid that in and will work the densely knitted together clouds over it. I added more shape and intensity to the blues and painted clouds on the top right, with the canvas sideways for awhile, which always helps me focus on what's right in front of my brush. One marker of progress on this beast is I wasn't completely lost every time I looked away to my reference and then looked back at the canvas. I'm starting to recognize the territory I've mapped.

I shot this photo in the afternoon. My rolling painting cart in on the far right of the frame and the messy coffee table that doubles as my desk is on the left. The chair behind the easel came in for the holidays, when my studio was cleared out for a party, and hasn't been toted out yet. That's my dog's bone on the floor by the easel.

holiday

I spent the last few weeks reading about the history of symphony conductors, making ornaments out of felt, beads and embroidery, and baking up a storm.

Entering the world of gallery representation and art shows shook up my internal emotional compass. It's exciting and nerve-wracking and exhilarating. And I discovered that it's deeply gratifying when a someone buys my work.

The best result of the turmoil was that it helped me clarify my motives and direction as a painter. I'm certain (today) that I want to honor exploration over branding, to acknowledge my paintings are an expression of gratitude, a kind of visual praise for the chance to be a witness in the world. They are a valentine to life, to being itself. I'm seeking the visible point where the spiritual and physical intersect in ways that are intimate and personal. That's all.

One more thing, my family gave me paint, gift wrapped every which a way! I played with new colors today. Today I got back to the easel, returning to the large cloud canvas. I have finally covered every bit of the canvas with paint. It's still far from where I want it to be, but I feel like I got to the starting post.

Sky paintings

Working on clouds at dawn. There's a pair - one vertical, gauzy and with lots of salmon pinks, the other a complicated mackerel sky, dotted with little clouds. A departure from my highly detailed, precise works of objects - pens, books, maps, and plates - close enough to touch. Like stretching after a run, though I think it will keep me limber. And one of the great pleasures of being a painter is painting what tugs at your heart and your eye.
Here's the first one - got a ways to go, but I'm confident I'll get there.

The mackerel sky isn't far enough along to post.

blue skies

It's been a week of meeting ferocious deadlines and my keyboard has had more of me than my brush, until yesterday.

I started a big painting of the sky quilted with the clouds at dawn. I did a careful gridded drawing because it's fiendishly complex, then put together three variations on blue and painted the negative space - the sky- leaving the white canvas beneath the cloud shapes. Used big brushes and at the end of the day my arm ached. It was great. I got lost more times than I can say. Finally worked out I could use a wipe board marker on the acetate grid over the reference to isolate the area I was working on. Got the major shapes roughed in except for the bottom six inches which I'll have to improvise due to the sketchy nature of the photo reference.

I have that soaring feeling that comes at the beginning of a project when it's all possibility and no limitations.

Learn as I go

I might as well confess now. I had every intention of working on the fish, but I went back to the Virgin to adjust one contour - and ended up reworking the candles, adding the flames, re balancing her face and roughing in the purse, so here's what I learned. Post what I've done at the end of the say, not what I think I'll do at the beginning. Lesson learned. So I won't speculate on what exactly I'll be doing tomorrow. I'll update rather than predict.

I will add that I paint on several different canvases - I usually have three or more in progress, at different points in development. Partly because oil takes it's gracious time to dry. Also I like to change focus after an intense period of work. It's like stretching or yoga - it keeps me limber. So presently I have Table 1280, Atlanta of the Table for One series, a large-ish (30x40") vertical of clouds at dawn, the small 8x8" fish and the Virgin. And three easels.
Good times.